On our 2018 trip to Italy, we spent our last week in Rome. While meandering around the city, we came across Ristorante Giulia at happy hour time. The restaurant is Giulia, and my name is Julia, so of course we went in for a cocktail and some snacks one night. Wow. The cocktails were wonderful and the complimentary snacks were showcase gastronomy. Chad went back for dinner on our last night in Rome, but I couldn’t eat any more food so I stayed home.
On this year’s trip, we made it a point to go back to the restaurant for dinner. In the last five years, most of the staff has changed, including the chef. But we recognized the bartender and the restaurant manager and chatted with them, and the food and drinks were still wonderful.
We each got the tasting menu with the wine pairing. What I didn’t realize is that it would be an eight-course menu. We sat down for dinner at 7:30 pm and left at 10:30 pm, meandering home and arriving back at our apartment close to midnight.
Enjoy the photos.
like all other restaurants in Italy, you have your choice between still (naturale) and sparkling (frizzante) water
the first amuse-bouche was a beef dumpling with mushroom cream accompanied by housemade bread and olive oil, and a glass of prosecco from Veneto
amuse-bouche #2 – poached egg on the bottom, then sauteed asparagus, and potato mousse on top, and chardonnay from the region
crispy octopus, mashed carrots with lemon, cream mousse and herb sauce, Vermentino white wine
If you’ve ever done a tasting menu – you know that point where you think, “This is too much.” For me it started here.
pasta carbonara with a kind of egg cream sauce and Italian bacon, regional white wine
potato dumplings filled with shredded chicken served in a white wine reduction, a local white wine
“boiled” beef with parsley salsa and cooked endive, local red wine
And then with the desserts, I was getting light-headed and seeing stars. I never eat this many calories in one sitting.
a sugared donut filled with vanilla cream, local dessert wine
After seeing stars, I ordered a grappa as a digestivo to cut through all of this food and bring me back to earth – as I was served dessert #2.
biscotti, meringue, grappa
Then Chad and I took a slow stroll back to our apartment. We stopped to look over the bridge at the Tiber River below which is beautiful at night, and we enjoyed the lights and relative lack of tourists in our Trastevere neighborhood at night. (More on the Trastevere neighborhood in a future post.)