Testaccio Fried Food Crawl

Monte Testaccio and the slaughterhouse

The name comes from testae, the Latin word for pottery fragments. Monte Testaccio is a hill made from the broken remains of ancient olive oil amphorae, discarded here over centuries when Rome’s river port was nearby. Much later, in the late nineteenth century, a municipal slaughterhouse, the Mattatoio, was built in the quarter, and the neighbourhood’s cooking developed around it.

The fifth quarter and Roman frying

Workers at the slaughterhouse were sometimes paid partly in the leftover parts of the animal, known as the quinto quarto, or fifth quarter. Cooks turned offal into dishes that are still part of Roman cuisine today, from oxtail stew to tripe. Frying belongs to the same culture of making modest ingredients delicious. Fried food in Rome tends to be simple, well seasoned and cooked in very hot oil so that the coating stays light.

• Supplì: fried rice croquettes with tomato and mozzarella.
• Fritti vegetali: fried artichokes, courgette flowers and other seasonal vegetables.
• Baccalà: battered salt cod, a long-standing tradition.
• Crocchette and polpette: croquettes and meatballs.

How to judge fried food

The same rules apply wherever you eat. The oil should be clean and hot. The coating should be crisp and thin. The food should be served immediately, not left to sit under a lamp. A light squeeze of lemon on fish or vegetables is common, but too much sauce is usually a sign that the cook is hiding something.

Walking Testaccio

Between snacks it is worth looking at the area for its own sake. The streets around Piazza Testaccio are lined with small bars, bakeries and old-fashioned trattorias. The area is also known for its nightlife on Via di Monte Testaccio. A short walk will take you towards the Tiber, the Aventine hill or the Protestant Cemetery.

Season and time of day

Fried food is popular all year, but cold evenings feel particularly suited to it. In summer, fried snacks are better taken in the cooler hours, and plenty of water is sensible. Vegetables such as artichokes and courgette flowers are tied to the seasons, so what appears fried changes through the year.

Testaccio also gives a good sense of how Rome’s districts have different identities. Unlike the monumental centre, it was planned in the late nineteenth century with a regular grid of streets and apartment blocks for workers. That orderly layout still shapes the quarter today, and it is one reason the area feels so much like a village. People greet each other in the street, shop at the same bakeries for years and have long-standing loyalties to particular trattorias, so the food is part of an ongoing local routine rather than a performance for visitors.