Il Pagliaccio (Rome, ITALY) ★★★☆☆

Rome, also known as The Eternal City, is so much more than a city with the famous Colosseum, Spanish Steps and Pantheon. From the culinary standpoint, there's a lot going on if you have time to dig deeper. 

As soon as we learned about the holiday closure of the great Heinz Beck's La Pergola, we started going over our backup plans and came across Ristorante Il Pagliaccio.

Located in a quiet street in the heart of Renaissance Rome next to the stylish Via Giulia, Ristorante Il Pagliaccio (the clown) offers a vibrant Roman cuisine with strong Mediterranean and Asian influences.

Born in France with his Italian Calabrian origin, owner-chef Anthony Genovese was raised in Côte d'Azur where he discovered his early interest and instincts in the Mediterranean cuisine. The well traveled chef later made stops at Monaco, Nice, Tokyo, London and Malaysia before returning to Italy to open the 28-seat Il Pagliaccio in 2003. The restaurant was an instant hit and has been a 2-star Michelin restaurant since 2009.



Despite an exterior that looked unattractive and "down to earth", it was a totally different world inside. The dining room offers a very cozy and inviting ambiance to fully enjoy Chef Genovese's extraordinary cuisine. 




There were a few types of bread served but we liked these ones the most. The spice powder on top gave these bread very unique flavors.



Amuse bouche was a simple shrimp salad with veal, white beans, radish and leeks (5/10).

 

The lunch sets offers a little better value for money but we elected to go for the a la carte menu to give us more variety. For starter, I had the crab meat served with a sophisticated salsify ice-cream, apple and mint.

The crab meat had great textures and it was nicely complemented by the salsify ice-cream which was sweet and flavorful. What a superb start it was (8/10)!


 

Our other starter was an oyster sashimi interestingly matched with burrata cheese, lychee foam and tapioca. Talk about the marriage of western and Asian cuisine, this had to be one of the classic examples and Chef Genovese was certainly not afraid to incorporate all these into the same dish (7/10).



Chef Genovese loves to mix and match different spices and he utilized that skill beautifully in preparing the next dish - roasted pigeon breast and legs. The exotic spices helped to enhance the flavors of the pigeon and I loved the rest of the dish that included carrot cream, endive, vinegar and scent of cocoa (8/10).


 

The rack of lamb was also wonderfully prepared with tobacco powder and then served with roman broccoli and vegetable sponge (7.5/10).



A bowl of cous cous came separately to go with the lamb.

 

We were too full to tackle any dessert from in-house pastry chef Marion Lichtle but looking at this beautifully presented petite fours, we knew desserts would be great too.



Chef Genovese's cuisine is very innovative and unique. His ability to use a wide variety of exotic spices has added another dimension to this culinary experience. The only reason it didn't score 5 stars in our dining experience was largely due to a team of complacent waiting staff. 

Sitting at the corner of the restaurant, we felt a bit stranded for the majority of the afternoon. None of the staff came up to check on us unless they were bringing food over and the overall experience was cold and inattentive.




Food Rating: 8/10

Price: €€€

Address: Via dei Banchi Vecchi, 129/a, 00186 Roma, Italy
Closest Metro Station: N/A
Tel: +39 06 6880 9595
Website: www.ristoranteilpagliaccio.com