Ristorante Due Ladroni is our favorite place in Rome to go for the freshest fish and seafood. It’s also one of Rome’s best looking restaurants and we have enjoye going there for years.
Due Ladroni is a family restaurant now run by the young brother and sister, Salvatore and Daniele Di Maria, who maintain their parents’ tradition of food and service at its best.
I started with one of my favorites, alici alla diavola, grilled spicy anchovies.
Michele ordered the octopus carpaccio with potatoes, olives and cherry tomatoes, a beautiful and simple starter.
Then we each ordered a pasta.
Michele had the tonnarelli, strands of fresh pasta, with red shrimp and fresh pachino tomatoes from Sicily.
And I had the tonnarelli with bottarga, zucchini flowers and sea urchin.
Then we shared a whole fish. It was an orata cooked in acqua pazza, meaning crazy water, a light herbaceous tomato broth. Not so crazy at all!
We shared an order of Cicoria Ripassata, chicory sauteed with garlic, olive oil and peperoncino.
The Benito Ferrara Greco di Tufo “Vigna Cicogna” was the perfect accompaniment to the food. The wine is made from 100% Greco di Tufo from Campania. There are 5,000 vines per hectare and they are 50 to 60 years old, at 400 to 500 meters. The exposure is southwest and the training system is espalier and guyot. Soil is mixed clay and sandy limestone with underlying sulfurous veins. Harvest is by hand in mid October. There is a soft pressing of the grapes, then the must is drained and vigorously protected from oxygen. It is then clarified by natural sedimentation. The wine spends 5 to 7 months in steel on the fine lees regularly resuspended in the wine. The wine remains in bottle for 1 to 2 months before release. The wine has hints of lemon, lime, grapefruit, bitter almond, and minerality due to the soil. This is a white wine that drinks like a red wine!
For dessert, we shared the wonderful Crostata alle Visciole con Gelato di Crema for dessert, sour cherry jam baked in a buttery crust with pine nut topping. The custardy ice cream was a perfect complement.
A few cookies accompanied our espresso.
Ristorante Due Ladroni is located at
PIAZZA NICOSIA 24 – ROMA
Contact at 066861013 and at 066896299
or write to info@dueladroni.com
Over the last few years it has become our first stop in Rome.
We like everything about the restaurant, the atmosphere, the hosts, and of course, the food and wine. 
I started with the Alice alla Diavola, grilled spicy anchovies with a salad dressed with lemon.
Michele had grilled octopus on a bed of chick pea puree.
Next I had Pici alle Vongole Veraci Sgusciate, thick spaghetti with clam sauce.
Michele had Pasta alla Norma with red tuna. Rigatoni pasta in a cherry tomato sauce with chunks of fried eggplant and sauteed red tuna. Served with ricotta salata cheese.
We shared a plate of Moscardini Fritti, tiny crisp fried octopus. They were impossibly crunchy and juicy at the same time.
Sicilia Menfi DOC 2021 “Cometa” Planeta made from 100% Fiano. The training system is espalier with guyot pruning and there are 4,500 vines per hectare. The grapes come from two different vineyards, Dispensa at 75 meters and Gurra at 35 meters and the soil is mostly lime and chalk. Harvest is at the end of September. After picking by hand, the grapes are stripped of stalks and sent to the press. Soft pressing and static sedimentation takes place in stainless steel at a low temperature of 6-7°C. The clear part is decanted and ferments in stainless steel tanks for 90% and for 10% in 35 hl oak barrels, at about 14-15 °C for 12/14 days. At the end of fermentation the tanks are filled up with similar wine and left on the primary lees with daily stirring. This is a well structured and
This is the Due Ladroni version of the classic Torta della Nonna. Here it was an individual tartlet filled with vanilla pastry cream and topped with pastry crumbles and pinenuts. I devoured it! 