Roma - Trattoria Monti

Trattoria Monti

Via San Vito 13A, Rome, 185

Trattoria Monti is the one restaurant from our last visit to Rome that we would definitely have a hard time not eating at on our next trip.  When you look back on the meals from a trip, the ones that you can't imagine skipping on your next trip are the ones that were really home runs.  Monti is one of the those places.  Monti is different from most Roman restaurants in that is a modern restaurant that respects tradition while offering an exciting dining experience at the same time. When I say modern, I am referring to things like the wine list, stemware, service and decor.  Monti is a very popular restaurant with Italians and Americans alike.  It was written up in 2006 in the New York Times in a 36 Hours - Rome piece, by Frank Bruni (former NYT restaurant critic who lived in Rome for several years before moving to NYC).  It is definitely a place for which you need reservations.  Here is the link to the article:

http://travel.nytimes.com/2006/12/17/travel/17hours.html

Monti has a charming dining room, and great service.  There is a momma in the kitchen, and the her 2 sons in the dining room.  Everything was very professional and elegant.  This is definitely a restaurant for a nice dinner.

For my appetizer I had a truly amazing dish.  I remember it being called a ravioli con uovo, but in the attached article, Frank Bruni calls it a tortellone.  I am not sure who is right, probably Bruni.  Either way, it was very, very good.

There were 2 sheets of pasta with a beautiful golden colored, soft cooked egg in the middle, with cheese, sage and a brown butter sauce.  This dish was really perfect.

For my entree, I had a piece of roasted pork with potatoes.  It was perfectly executed, with nice crisp skin.  The potatoes were delicious as well.  Looking at the picture above it looks like we had either a lasagne or an eggplant parmesan.  And, of course Sloan had tagliarini with truffles.  

Check out the original Faema E61 in the back of the restaurant on the way to the bathroom.  We have a replica version of this machine at Nizza.

We really enjoyed the dinner, it was our last meal for the trip, and it certainly filled that role well.  We highly recommend this as a choice for one of your dinners.  On the way out, we asked our cab driver to swing by Piazza Navona and the Coliseum.  We remember our very gracious driver explaining that he never gets tired of seeing the sites of Rome, because they make him proud, and because he truly feels that they are a part of who he is.  It was very touching.