Stefano Callegari and Perla Ambrosetti bring the sea to the center of Rome with solid, traditional cuisine packed with seasoning.
If you are for tofu-and-salad Zen cuisine turn away. Here the helm points straight to the heart and is for people who like substance even when it comes to seafood cuisine.
It opened last Jan. 12 but the premise is that of a safe harbor. The new restaurant Armare (“By the Sea” in Roman dialect) is the new challenge of the king of Roman cuisine Stefano Callegari and his partner and woman of the dining room, Perla Ambrosetti. The brilliant new idea this time touches on seafood cuisine and is located at 61 Via Cipro, just across the street from their trattoria Romanè, which opened just over a year ago and is already part of the Buon Ricordo chain of restaurants.
Perla and Stefano thus bring the sea to the center of Rome with the most solid and traditional cuisine. The recipes are in fact those of their grandmothers, made of sauces, gravies and scarpetta yes but with fish dishes: and here you can read on the menu the Coda di Rospo alla vaccinara or fried mussels, cuttlefish with peas and pasta ceci e baccalà.
A cuisine of substance, rich in seasoning as tradition dictates. Greasy and enjoyable just the way we like it. Guazzetti, sughetti and sollazzi it says on the sign and it really is. Dishes that are so very, very good and refreshing that can be enjoyed at all hours because here the kitchen does not take a break, from lunchtime to dinner is one to meet even those tourists who have different habits from ours when it comes to meal times. If you are in the mood for a butter and anchovy pasta at five o’clock in the afternoon this is the place to come to mind, in short.
The room is simple, twin to Romané‘s so much so that it is difficult from the photos to distinguish the two places. As soon as you are seated at the table, a potato and tuna meatball arrives as a welcome of the kind that mothers prepare for children to eat fish by hiding it in the meatball.
I then order as an appetizer the cuttlefish with peas (Cuttlefish from our seas you mean, cooked in a soffritto of evo oil, red garlic from Sulmona, parsley, moistened with Findus spring peas – gastrofighetti don’t turn your nose up – and San Marzano dop tomatoes) and the fried mussels that I so missed as a good Taranto girl. Promoted with flying colors.
The two first courses tasted were Pacchero (Pastificio Gentile) with monkfish alla vaccinara (tomato and celery for short) exquisite, with the pasta nice and al dente and plenty of seasoning, and Pacchero with fresh blue fish, smoked in oil, sautéed in garlic, chili and with toasted and crumbled cashews. Also delicious. I’m keeping in mind for my next visit the broccoli and arzilla fettuccine and the seafood tripe that just reading about them makes my mouth water.
I manage at this point to taste only one second course and of all of them, although I am also enticed by the other dishes that are on the menu such as the iodized saltimbocca, the panata fettina di mare, and the Bastoncini di pesce con humus alla romana, I choose the Calamaro ripieno and what can I tell you…tender, sweet and savory to the right point, a triumph.
No dessert for me this time while drooling over the desserts that pass under my nose headed for the other tables.
On the wine list there remains a preference for natural wines and small producers as well as in the trattoria across the street.
