Trip Ideas
Change Forum
Taking the family (5 of us) to Italy and will be in Rome on New Year's eve. We'll be on a budget, but would like to take them someplace nice for dinner, but not over 50e per person. Youngest is 13 so no little kids involved.
At home, we usually have friends in and I cook a nice dinner on NYE because the restaurant's are so busy, have special menus and we've found this has often meant sub-standard fare and rushed service on that night. Don't know if it would be the same in Rome.
In Paris two years ago we had a wonderful dinner at a restaurant we often frequent when there and it was wonderful. Alas, no such familiarity with Rome.
Any suggestions will be welcome. Thanks!
Book Your Next Trip
Check hotel rates and airfares around the world.
Find a great deal?
Tell us about it.
Hotels
Flights
Packages
Cars
Cruises
Each website you select will open a new window in your browser.
New Year's Eve dinner in Rome-suggestions, please
11 Replies | Jump to last reply
|11 Replies |Back to top
|Sign in to comment.
Recent Activity
View all Europe activity »
- 1
Whipped and kissed at the Cirque d'Hiver: Nikki runs away to Paris
- 2 B&B Recommendations for Provence
- 3 Apt Rental in Paris allorenta.com or Paris Sweet HOme
- 4 Help me choose from these Paris Hotels
- 5 Help with Planning Trip to Greece
- 6 Need advice traveling to Spain
- 7 European cities "open" Christmas Eve and Day
- 8 Which Beautiful Villages of France - Cot du Sur?
- 9 April in Ireland
- 10 London Airport Transfers and Transport
- 11 Cerveteri
- 12 Paris - Nov 3 - Dec 14 - Part II
- 13 Kerouac takes a look at Christmas in Paris
- 14 6 days in Ireland
- 15 Milan/Venice Train and Hotel Question
- 16 Two weeks - Venice, Bologna and Umbria in mid June
- 17
Our four-day, Thanksgiving weekend getaway to London
- 18 Italy - Venice
- 19 Day tours of Istanbul
- 20 Rome - May 1, 2010
- 21 Trenitalia 10/28/2009 Press Release
- 22 hotel suggestions st cirq lapopie or cabrerets
- 23 Where to go for 4 day road trip from London into Europe??
- 24 Sat,April 24, will an early uncrowded bus be possible Positano to Amalfi?
- 25 French museum strike
What's "nice" about eating in Roma is the conviviality plus the tasty food, best when it is closest to home cooked -- which you will soon discover when you are there. The fancy restaurants with the set - menus are expensive, and stuffy -- and similar to the disapponting experience you have in New York.
Romans tend to spend New Year's Eve with family (or out of the country, skiing). My strategy for spending New Year's eve in Rome would be that if I had a great, fun meal someplace before that -- be it lunch or dinner -- ask the owner if they will be open New Year's Eve. If the answer is yes, ask if it is a special menu (and the price, if you're still interested.). If the answer is no, ask the owner if he knows of someplace good, cheap and fun that will be open.
PS: I wanted to add that some of the bigger public celebrations in Rome on New Year's Eve-- around the Piazza del Popolo, Campo dei Fiori, and other places -- can be packed and degenerate into dousing with wine and other wild-youth drunken revelry -- which might be more alarming and annoying than fun. You might plan to avoid them.
Have a great trip!
Zeppole, I was hoping you'd see this post. Thanks for the wonderful suggestion about returning to a good restaurant for New Year's eve. We did, in fact, have a terrific dinner at a small "local' restaurant near our rented apartment in Rome last October. We were staying near the Tiber along the Lungotevere Marzio and there was a resto in a tiny square behind us called B4. Very, very nice owner--very friendly--and an excellent meal. I should probably stop back and see about New Year's eve.
Any suggestions for a special place to be at midnight, other than the rowdy ones you mentioned?
Thanks!
One of our favorites in Rome is Vecchia Roma. http://www.ristorantevecchiaroma.com/
You will likely still be at table at midnight. I have a trip report in great detail about a New Year's Eve in Italy. Dinner starts late and is multi-course with some very traditional touches and does not end until close to 1 am. Your family will, by midnight, have become part of someone elses family and you will be celebrating the hour together.
Good idea to see if B4 will be open and what they will be serving.
For New Year's Eve, I would be more inclined to stay out the piazze and streets (the Roman tradition is to throw your broken crockery out the window) and peek into a midnight mass -- not because I'm religious, but because Italian churches are often most beautifully and brilliantely lit for high mass on the holidays. My pick for a church would be Santa Maria in Trastevere, with its gorgeous, gorgeous mosaics and my pick therefore for a restaurant before would be the absolutely delicious and totally non-touristy, affordable Sor'eva, in the piazza delle Rovere, a true local family trattoria with heart-warming pastas, up the Tiber in between Trastevere and St. Peter's.
Sor'Eva tel no
0039 06 6875797
David's favorite is Giarrosto Toscano
http://www.romeguide.it/FILES/ristoranti/giratosca/toscano.htm
Hi, I live in Rome and often use the diningcity website to search for restaurants. At the moment you can also search for places which are open on Christmas and Newyear. For a nice place and relatively quit place but not to far from the maddening crowd on campo de fiori I would go to La Regola http://www.diningcity.com/rome/ristorantelaregola21/index_eng.jsp or restaurant Cafe Romano near the Spanish steps.
There are two great little restaurants in and near Piazza Montevecchio, about 150 meters from Navonna, down via dei Coronari. Ristorante Montevecchio is really good, I've eaten there several times...
http://www.diningcity.com/rome/ristorantemontevecchio21/index_eng.jsp
Just around the corner is another restaurant, that for the life of me I cannot remember the name. Both are open on NYE.
Thanks for the recent posts-I'm going to check all of them. You guys are terrific!