Where to eat in Rome: how to spot a tourist trap in ten seconds

The commonest question over all these years: 'where can you eat properly here?' Rome is a city of great cooking, but a hundred metres from any large sight you will almost certainly be fed dearly and indifferently. The good news: the trap can be seen in ten seconds, before you even sit down.

Five signs of a tourist trap

Turn away if you see even two of these:

• A menu with photographs of the dishes. A trattoria confident in its cooking never does this.
• A tout at the door, catching passers-by.
• A menu in six languages on a stand by the entrance.
• Tables right on the main square, with a view of the fountain: you are paying for the view, not the food.
• The words 'menu turistico'.

As a rule, the prettier your table's view is for a postcard, the worse the plate.

Where to go in fact

Turn off the grand squares into the residential quarters:

• Testaccio — a historic working district, where Roman cooking is at home.
• Trastevere, but deeper in: not the front line by the river, but the quiet lanes two or three blocks further.
• Monti — between the Colosseum and the centre, with many small trattorie for locals.

A simple move: walk two blocks away from the flow — the prices fall and the quality rises.

What to order in Rome in particular

Rome is four great pastas and a couple of specialities:

• Cacio e pepe: pecorino and black pepper, the very model of simplicity.
• Carbonara — the canonical kind, with no cream: egg, guanciale, pecorino.
• Amatriciana and gricia, the other two pillars of Roman pasta.
• Artichokes alla romana (braised) or alla giudia (fried).
• Supplì — rice croquettes to start, Roman street food.

On the 'coperto' and the bill

Do not be surprised by the coperto line on the bill: it is a lawful charge for the table and bread, a couple of euros a head, ordinary Roman practice. But if dishes you never ordered have been 'accidentally' added to the bill, that is precisely the place you should have walked past.

Choosing where to walk between meals — here is the 'Rome in one day' route. And to eat where the Romans do, look at where they go themselves.

Tried and tested addresses are gathered on the City Map of Rome. In Prime my own places open up — the trattorie where I truly take guests.