This dish of chicken in a lipsmacking citrus and oregano sauce has been handed down through many generations of Roman restaurateurs

If you look through the window of Piatto Romano between 10am and midday, there will almost certainly be two, maybe three people at the round table trimming vegetables: chicory, artichokes, poppy greens, amaranth. After midday, the crates and trimmings will have been cleared away and the table will now be home to trays of bright-green boiled vegetables and, maybe, baked salt cod. By 12.30pm, everything will have been moved into the small kitchen in time for service, which starts at 12.45pm.

When I first moved to Rome in 2005, Via Bodoni 62 was home to a restaurant called Da Rafaelle, which had white plastic chairs (inside as well) and served traditional Roman food with plenty of offal. We went to Da Rafaelle a few times before it closed in 2009. But, mostly, we went to La Torricella, which is on the other side of Testaccio and serves mainly fish. The owner is Augusto D’Alfonsi and, during lunch one day, he mentioned that he was taking over via Bodoni 62, and that his daughter Francesca would run it. They’d serve traditional Roman food with plenty of offal and it would be called Piatto Romano. This was 2011. My son was born later that year and my memories are not unpleasantly foggy; of the vegetable trolley in the corner, of chicken with red peppers and of Francesca and her father negotiating strongly. I also remember Francesca’s brother, Andrea, starting to be around more, before he eventually took over in late 2013. Continue reading…
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