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Italy is home to the Renaissance as well as to the great western-style food. In the year 1533, when Princess Catherine married Prince Henry, she brought with her the techniques as well as representative chefs of Italian cooking to France, and the art of Italian food eventually flourished in the country. If you sense too much formality in French cuisine, the equally delicious but much more easy-going Italian food is bound to leave you satisfied.

Some say that Italian food has the taste of mama, and that it is the best taste in the world. Italian mothers will not only cook for the family, but also teach their children to inherit their art of cooking, such as a special pizza recipe. Italian’s favorite ingredients are garlic, onions, tomatoes, cheese, olive oil and herbs. Techniques employed range from frying, stir-frying, to braising and stewing. The food generally has a sour, sweet or peppery flavor and its texture is rich and tender. Italians are devotees and masters of pastas, and they have invented a great variety of the delicious food, including the world-famous spaghetti.

The boot-shaped land of Italy results in a large difference between the climates of the southern and the northern region, and this gives birth to four different regional styles of cooking. The Northern Italy Cuisine is similar to French food; cheese, fresh milk and butter are common ingredients. Popular cuisines include lasagna. The Central-Italy Cuisine is famous for the Tuscany beef, artichoke and Pecorino cheese. The Southern Italy Cuisine is the most celebrated and the most representative. The region is home to the much beloved macaroni. Popular ingredients include olive oil, herbs and sea food. The Island Cuisine represented by Sicilian food is deeply influenced by Arabian cuisine but sea food, vegetables and pastas remain to be the main part of the menu.

A complete meal has a special structure. The Antipasto (‘before the meal’) serves to tickle the appetite. Suppli, which is fried rice ball filled with rich mozzarella cheese, is a famous dish and a savory prelude to a grand Italian meal.

Naples is home to pizzas. The secret of a good pizza lies in its crust. Add water and olive oil to the high-quality flour, knead the dough patiently, wait until the fermentation is complete and you are already halfway to success. The crust can be either thick, or thin as in typical Roman Pizza. Add tomato sauce and cheese to the crust, and what ingredient to use next depends solely on your personal preference: it can be mushrooms, onions, potato chips, green peppers, sausage, ham, fish or whatever you like, but do remember to add a little olive oil before you put the crust into the oven. In order to create authentic Italian pizza, the crust should be baked in an oven fired by smokeless fruitwood. After two minutes, a thin pizza with inviting ingredients and rich cheese is ready for you to enjoy. Besides, although most Italian food is accompanied with wine, pizza should be washed down by beer, especially cold beer.

It is said that local delicacies are most likely to be found in plain small restaurants along the streets, and the saying certainly contains much truth and lacks no example. Pizzeria da Baffetto is located near the famous Piazza Navona and a long queue for its delicious pizzas can always be seen in front of the restaurant. Ignore the old architecture, the simple exterior and focus on the super-thin pizzas and their rich ingredients, and you will surely be captured by the extraordinary taste.

La Pergola, a three-Michelin-star restaurant, features an amazing collection of over 53000 bottles of wine. Healthy olive oil and fresh vegetable will bring you unrivalled experience of authentic Italian food in Rome.

The Italian cuisine, when combined with elegant dining environment, is truly a treat for everyone. The Michelin-starred Mirabelle boasts its magical and luxurious environment and has a splendid city view of Rome. The orange sauce duck with caramelized snow pear has a beautiful red color and is deliciously sweet.

Lasagna is a typical food of Rome. Covered in meat sauce, alternate layers of flat pasta, cheese and meat are baked in the oven, providing a spectrum of flavors as well as rich sauce and excellent smell of the cheese. The taste of the lasagna will almost convince you that it is the champion of the Italian cuisine. It is served in most Italian restaurants as a local special.

When dining in Agate e Romeo, you cannot help but believe the present course is the best one, yet the next course always proves to be better. The scorpion fish with potato foam, coffee powder and sea-urchins has a beautiful color and an equally beautiful taste. Ravioli stuffed with braised oxtail is a first-echelon delicacy with rich juice.

What is the most inviting Italian food? Undoubtedly it is the Italian macaronis with interesting shapes and various sauces. There are over 500 types of macaronis; some of them resemble screws, butterflies, shells or even letters. If they are combined with numerous different sauces, their variety is beyond calculation. High quality wheat abounds in protein and is both dense and strong. It is fitfully chewy when half-done. In the morning, many mothers knead enough dough for the whole day and make fresh noodles out of it when needed. What kind of sauce do you prefer? There are red, green, white and black sauces for you to choose from. The red sauce is the tomato sauce which is almost everybody’s favorite. The special black sauce is the squid ink sauce used to complement seafood spaghetti. The green sauce is made of basil, bits of pine nuts and olive oil and is rich and fragrant. The wrinkled surface is specially designed to ensure the macaronis carry with them a maximum amount of tasty sauce.

Imàgo, the panoramic restaurant, provides the guests with a breathtaking view of Rome as well as fascinating Italian cuisine, including fettucce pasta with squid and fusilloni pasta with tomato sauce. The colors of the city and the flavor of the Italian food will make you feel like being a passionate Italian yourself.

The two-Michelin-starred restaurant Il Pagliaccio offers a galaxy of Italian delicacies including classic Italian risotto with tomatoes, cold spaghetti with clams and basil, caramelized lamb with aubergines, pine nuts and anchovies chutney, red curry pig cutlet with plums and white cabbage, and the fragrant pineapple tatin.

There is saying that Italy has made the greatest contribution to the mankind by inventing ice cream. It is really hard to imagine what life would be like without this delicacy. If you ask the Romans where you can find the best gelato, they will probably answer Giolitti, San Crispino, Fassi 1880.

Giolitti ranks first among the gelato stores in Rome and sits quietly in an old alley. The store dates back to 1890 and used to supply dairy to the noble. With its warm atmosphere, the world-famous store provides the guests from home and abroad with more than 50 flavors of ice cream, including pistachio nuts, baileys, coffee, raspberry and chocolate chips.

Still want for more? Don’t worry. The tour of Italian cuisine is not yet finished. Let’s move on to explore the delicacies in Florence, Venice and Milan.

Pizzeria da Baffetto：
Address 114, Via del governo vecchio 00186
Tel +39 06 6861617

La Pergola：
Address Rome Cavalieri, Waldolf Astoria Resort, Via Alberto Cadlolo 101, 00136
Tel +39 06 35091

Mirabelle：
Address Via di Porta Pinciana, 14, 00187
Tel +39 06 42168838

Agata e Romeo：
Address Via Carlo Alberto 45, 00185
Tel +39 06 4466115

Imago：
Address： 6th floor Hassler Hotel, Piazza Trinita dei Monti, 6
Telephone： +39 06 699 34726

Il Pagliaccio：
Address 129a, Street Banchi Vecchi
Tel +39 06 68 80 9595

Giolitti：
Address Via Uffici del Vicario, 40, 00186
Tel +39 06 699 12 43