I confess that I haven’t been to Rome since before the pandemic, and it is my intent to now return as soon as possible, not least to visit some of my favorite ristoranti and trattorie as well as check out new places.  But here’s the thing about Rome’s restaurant scene: New, especially as novelty, is not particularly regarded highly, although there are a few young chefs pushing into modernist corners in search of Michelin stars (which usually results in half-full dining rooms). Ask a concierge what’s “new” in town and he is likely to recommend a place that opened five years ago.
       Second, Roman restaurants tend not to change from year to year, even decade to decade, so that I always feel safe recommending a place I haven’t been to in a while with full confidence it will be every bit as good as I say it will be. Many are family owned, and even if it’s not the original family, another one bought it and maintains it.
       Every long-time visitor to Rome has his or her favorites, and many restaurant names pop up again and again in articles. Some of these I recommend below are very well known, some are in season frequented by tourists—who, by the way, keep restaurants worldwide in business.
So, take my advice, and write back to let me know if some place that’s been serving Roman food for fifty years has somehow gone sadly into decline. Somehow I doubt it.
      La Rosetta (Via della Rosetta, 8/9), which claims to be Rome’s first true seafood restaurant, has never been challenged on that score since opening in 1966  (before that it was a rosticceria dating back to 1763).  Owners Carmelo Riccioli and Romana Colella, now with son Massimo (left) in the kitchen, keep everyone happy with fritture—crisply fried seafood, sprinkled with chopped mint and a squeeze of lemon (30€). This is one of the few places where I really love the seafood pastas, especially linguine con astice, with sweet Mediterranean lobster (35€). Wonderful seafood risotto (33€)! Simple? Impeccably so, but La Rosetta also does many innovative, more complex dishes, like seared red mullet fillets with sage with cardoncelli mushrooms (30€); lobster and scallops au gratin with Champagne and chicory (45€); lobster gratin with Champagne sauce and artichokes (33€); and a “Big Fish and Shellfish Soup” to share (45€).
      For something much, much older there is the revered and beloved La Campana (Via della Lungara, 41) near the Campo di Fiori. It dates back to 1518, and the room is barebones (left), always packed with locals. The menu is basic Roman with all the usual pastas, a very wide selection of antipasti alla tavola, and specials throughout the week, including offal, which is a Roman passion. It’s not rushed, but it’s not a place to linger, and you’ll find the veteran staff very eager to please you with whatever you order. The coda alla vaccinara (braised oxtail) with rigatoni (19€) is delicious, as are the fried artichokes (6€).
      For an impeccable marriage of the traditional and the new, head for L’Arcangelo (Via Giuseppe Giocchino Belli, 59/61 ) in the Prati district, now ten years old, where Stefania and Arcangelo Dandini (right) show an ebullience that translates into sumptuous renderings of Roman classics like gnocchi potato dumplings with dried tomatoes, salt cod, and mint (13€) ; tagliatelle with dried porcini mushrooms (13€); onion ravioli with herbs and butter and a sweet-and-sour sauce (13€); cheese-stuffed lamb with an egg sauce (18€); and cod and tomato sauce with plums and dried fruit (16€). Don’t miss the terrific Italian charcuterie from artisanal master Fulvio Pierangelini. 
    La Matricianella (Via del Leone, 4), snug in an alleyway near the Piazza Borghese, has been around since 1957, opened by a family from Amatrice (where pasta all’amatriciana comes from) and owned since 1995 by brother and- ister Giacomo and Grazia Le Bianco, who welcome everyone like family. Chefs Giovanni Fabbrotti, Lorenzo Vannucchi and Stefano Timi specialize in delicately fried foods, twelve of them, like artichokes alla giudia (7€); baccalà (8€), stewed tripe (right) and much else. The tagliolini with truffles (18€) and tonnarelli with a spicy arrabiata sauce (11€) are terrific. For a main course go with the sage-scented saltimbocca (18€) or the grilled lamb sweetbread (18€).
    The wine list is one of the most comprehensive in the city, especially for a trattoria, and you should visit the wine cellar downstairs. 
     La Carbonara, set on the gorgeous Campo dei Fiori flower market, gets its good share of tourists, not least because of its name. The restaurant did not invent spaghetti alla carbonara, made with egg and guanciale bacon (below)—they actually use penne, not spaghetti—but they have certainly perfected it (14€), along with other Roman pastas like cacio e pepe (14€), cannelloni (14€), gnocchi with oxtail (14€) and ravioli stuffed with cod and pumpkin sauce (14€).  The grilled lamb chops called scottaditi—finger burners—you pick up with your fingers and chew off the bone (18€). And they have fried lamb’s brains with artichokes (16€). There’s also a fine array of antipasti displayed, and the service staff couldn’t be nicer to a traveler.
        The Fazzi family opened L’Hostaria Romana (via del Boccaccio 1 ) near the Trevi Fountain 60 years ago, then turned it over to the Camponeschi family in 1979.  There are two floors, one overlooking the street, the other below ground in a room scrawled with thousands of graffiti names and praises (left). Always make a reservation because the place is always jammed by those who love bucatini all'amatriciana, spaghetti alla carbonara, tonnarelli cacio e pepe, paccheri alla gricia  and ravioli ricotta e spinaci. There is also baby lamb, which feeds on the mint of the Roman hillsides, tripe in a tomato and cheese reduction, oxtail alla vaccinara stew, and, as is common in Rome, “Quinta Quarto” specials specific to the day, like pasta e fagioli on Tuesday and pasta e ceci  on Friday.  (Current prices are not listed on line but pastas are around 10€.)
     The Trastevere neighborhood, across the Tiber, almost comes as a quiet shock after the loud bustle on the other side. Within winding streets are scores of wonderful trattorias, including Antica Osteria Da Giovanni (Via della Lungara, 41), not far from the Vatican, with only about six tables (right), plus one oddly placed in the kitchen.  It’s been there since 1951 and is a two-man show—the amiable owner, who waits on every table, and the cook in the back.  The menu is very simple, whatever’s good that day you want to eat. All  four pastas are, believe it or not, still 5€, all the main courses 6€. The long-simmered meat ragù is lavished over ravioli, and the roast rabbit is excellent, tender and suffused with rosemary.

    David, feeling more inadequate than unhelpful with Katie’s project, was encouraged by her wanting him to stay on the job. He was learning a good deal about the art world and how it operates—a far cry from how the New York mobs worked—and saw enormous potential for crimes to be committed within its ranks, from the forgers to the swindlers, from the auction houses only interested in making a sale to the museums desperate to get their hands on the rarest pieces out there.  While at the library, he had read that a former curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art once said he believed up to forty percent of the artwork in some of the world’s finest museums are either forgeries or mis-attributed.
          Then, of course, there were all those rich people in the shadows, billionaires who spoke only to each other and made deals without always defining provenance, buying, selling and exchanging stolen artworks from the Middle East, South America and Asia. Wherever there was a war going on, there was art theft, and there were few scruples among the super rich when it came to owning something their competitors could only dream of.
         And, beyond all that, he had his time with Katie, who he thought was not totally out of reach for a man his age—they got on very, very well and had been through some dangerous moments—but he also felt that every day he got older she was still in the full bloom of her life.
         There were times when he dismissed it all as mere infatuation and times when he really thought he was in love with her.  Then there were other times he reminded himself he could be her father, had he gotten married and had a daughter when he was twenty. So, until he figured it out, or Katie grew closer to him, he was just damn happy to be with her as often as he could and to be of some help in her career.
         For her part David was no father figure—she already had a father she adored—and, after all they’d gone through, although she felt closer to David than to any of her friends, Katie was very careful never to let him think there could be a romance between them. Her own love life had involved a few affairs and “the lawyer guy” was still somewhere in the picture. But Katie’s independent streak was a wide one and it was something many men could not abide in a long-term relationship.  It made her feel good that she could always count on David for anything and for a long time to come.
         The phone rang in her apartment and it was Prof. Mundt on the line. “Oh, Katie, I am calling you about the Vermeer painting. Do you recall I said the words on it might be ‘sui generis,’ and Prof. Lìu suggested it was Chinese instead? Well, I was somewhat skeptical at first, but I think she may be closer to the truth than I was.”
         “How so?” asked Katie.
         “Well, I was speaking to one of the Latin professors here—perhaps you remember him, Father Ignatius Ryan?—and I mentioned ‘sui generis’ to him, and he told me that it is really not an old Latin term. He said it was new Latin, using original Latin words to create a new idea. So we looked up the phrase in the Oxford English Dictionary and found that its first printed appearance, at least in an English book, was in 1787, which is more than a century after Vermeer painted The Alchemist.  I doubt very much the Dutch were using the term back in 1668.  And it makes that ‘G’ more likely to be a ‘J.’”
         “That is so amazing,” said Katie. “Prof. Mundt, thanks so much for letting me know.  It really makes the Chinese connection so much stronger.”
         “Ah, Katie, a scholar is of no use to the student if he is not ready to be educated himself.”
         The two chatted socially for a few minutes, but Katie’s mind was racing. After 350 years could there actually be a connection to the present-day Mr. Hai Shui, or to any other member of an extended family that had been around for a millennium?  The chances seemed slim, but Hai Shui’s living in Taiwan and being a billionaire art collector certainly seemed more than a coincidence. 
         Then again, all the billionaires on Gerald Kiley’s short list had good reason to be in the bidding for the painting, but until the work was actually on the auction block—after a period of examination—none would make a play. 
      “Curiouser and curiouser,” Katie said to herself each time a new piece of the puzzle emerged.

                  *                         *                         *                         *

         Art Today always came out on a Wednesday, and the phone calls about the Vermeer always came the Monday before, so Coleman and Katie both had reason to hope that the next call would be coming this Monday. 
         Coleman had just returned from lunch when he heard his office phone ringing.  He grabbed it and said, “Art Today, Coleman here.”
         “Ah, Mr. Coleman,” said a familiar voice, “I have some news you can certainly use.”
         “O.K., shoot.”
         “The Vermeer is about to make its first public appearance.”
         Coleman grabbed a pen and started writing on a pad. “That’s great news. Where and when?”
         “At a gallery in Hong Kong, where it will be open to discreet inspection by approved experts on 17th century Dutch art.”
         “Has the owner been announced?”
         When Coleman heard who it was, he was astonished.
         Almost as soon as the woman hung up, Katie rang Coleman.
         “Well, it’s Monday,” she said. “Any news?”
         “Yeah, I’d say so,” said Coleman. “You sitting down?”
         “That big a deal, huh? So what is it?”
         “Well, the painting is about to become public, as is the owner, and, once it’s been looked at by experts, it’s going to be auctioned off in—you ready for this?—Hong Kong.”
         “Hong Kong? Why would the owner show it in Hong Kong?”
         “I know. If it were Chinese or Asian art—a Ming vase or ancient jade figures—it would have been a natural thing for it to debut in Hong Kong. Both Christie’s and Sotheby’s have auction houses there. But for a Vermeer? That’s highly unusual.”
         “O.K., I’m sitting down, John,” said Katie, her pen poised.   “Who’s the owner? Someone prominent in the art world in Asia?”
         “Prominent in Asia, yes, you could certainly say that,” said Coleman.
         “And can you tell me who that is?”
         “Yes, I can. The current owner of the Vermeer is the People’s Republic of China.”

“Do not go to Claw & Hammer on a date. Or to be more exact, do not go to Claw & Hammer on a first date. Go on a seventh or eighth date, when the deed has been done, and you’ve  seen each other being about as messy and human as it’s possible to be. Then this restaurant on the eastern edge of the city of London, which specializes in southern US seafood boils, will be just the thing.”—Jay Rayner, “Claw and Hammer,” The Observer (3/4/22).