Ten Must-Try Street Foods in Rome | 2026

Thinking of taking a food tour while you're in Rome? Before you commit to one that costs 80 euro or more per person and that herds you around on somebody else's schedule, we've got another option. Today we're taking you on our own Rome street food tour and sharing some of our favorite places and local eats. A lot of these places are located in the Trastevere neighborhood, so it's easy to go from one to the other. Some of them are located around Rome, so it doesn't matter really the order you do them in. What matters is that you try these foods. Come along with us and we'll introduce you to Rome's best street foods, where to enjoy them, and we'll give you the backstory on each one. Andiamo! We're starting our food tour in Trastevere at Bar San Callisto, one of those classic neighborhood bars that still feels old school Rome. This is not formal coffee culture. This is Roman bar culture. You go in, you stand at the counter, you order a coffee or a cappuccino, maybe something sweet to eat, and then you get on with your day. Here to go with our cappuccino, we're having a maritozzo, or more specifically a maritozzo con la panna. A maritozzo is a soft, slightly sweet Roman bun split open and filled with whipped cream. It's a lot like having dessert for breakfast, which is one of the reasons we love Italy. The dough itself can have things like olive oil, honey, orange zest, raisins, or candied fruit mixed in, depending on the version. But the maritozzo most visitors recognize is just the big dramatic one with whipped cream spilling out of the middle. It's delicious and it's impossible to eat elegantly. Don't be surprised if you end up with whipped cream all over your face. The name comes from which means husband. There's a romantic story that young men would give these to the women they hope to marry, sometimes even hiding a ring or a little gift inside. Even if that story isn't true, it's a great excuse to eat whipped cream for breakfast. An important side note about ordering coffee in Italy, if you order a latte as you bite back home at Starbucks, you're going to get a glass of milk because that's what latte means in Italian. If you want what Americans call a latte, ask for a caffè latte. Better yet, give yourself a cappuccino. Another thing to know about Italian bars, often, especially in touristy areas, it will cost you more to order and drink coffee sitting at a table than it will standing at the counter. Now we're going to go into Biscotti Ficcio Artigiano Ognunocente. This place feels like it belongs in another era. It's a small neighborhood bakery that bakes traditional Roman cookies the way they always have for years and years. And when you walk in you see lots of trays of all different kinds of cookies, a few pastries, and you see the big old oven which is baking them and filling the whole place with the most wonderful smell. A biscotti ficcio is basically a cookie workshop or biscuit bakery. In one useful language note, in Italy biscotti does not only mean those long hard almond cookies that Americans dip in coffee. In Italian biscotti just means cookies, so you'll see all kinds. Almond cookies, jam cookies, rustic butter cookies, little ring-shaped cookies, and ones with nuts or chocolate or shape like hearts. You point to a few things, you buy them by weight, and you've made yourself a little cookie assortment. That makes it a great stop along a food walk because you don't have to commit to a big dessert. You just walk in, you fill a bag with a few cookies, and then you can snack as you go. Now we're going from sweet to savory. We're going to a Norcinaria. Norcinaria is a store that specializes in pork products, prosciutto, sausages, salami, and other types of pork. The word comes from Norcia, a town in Umbria that has been famous for pork butchery and salumi for centuries. At Norcina di Iacuzzoli in Trastevere, the thing we love is porchetta. Porchetta is one of the great foods from central Italy. It's a deboned pig layered on the inside with salt, pepper, garlic, rosemary, fennel, and other herbs, then rolled, tied, and slow roasted until the meat is tender and the skin is crisp. You can eat it as part of a platter, but the best way to eat it is as a porchetta sandwich. This is not a sandwich that needs a lot of extras. The pork, the herbs, the fat, the crispy skin, that's where all the flavor is. Now if you're not ready for a full sandwich, you're still in a great place to try other types of salumi. So you'll see prosciutto and other kinds of sausage. You'll see pecorino cheese and other specialties of the region. One tip, if you see porchetta and there's pieces of crispy skin, ask for some of that. That's a really special part of the porchetta experience. Let me introduce you to one of Rome's greatest snacks, supli. The easiest way to describe supli is that it's a Roman rice ball filled with all sorts of goodness, cheese, tomatoes, etc. The classic version is made with rice cooked in tomato sauce, sometimes with a little meat sauce, wrapped around mozzarella, coated in breadcrumbs, and fried. When you break it open, the mozzarella stretches out in a long string. That's why the classic version is called supli al telefono, because the cheese looks like an old telephone cord. For anyone who knows Sicilian arancini or arancine, supli are related in spirit, but they're not exactly the same. Supli are Roman, usually more oval shaped, and the classic version is much more about tomato, rice, and mozzarella. At Supli Roma in Trastevere, start with the classic version. Then, if they have variations, you might try variations like cacio e pepe, carbonara, amatriciana, or other Roman-inspired flavors. This is a good ordering tip for Rome, in fact, anywhere in Italy. When you're in a place where there's some classic variety, order that first, and then later you can branch out into something else. The classic supli is the perfect street food. It's crispy, cheesy, and hot. It's so hot, in fact, you want to wait a few seconds before you bite into it, or you'll burn the roof of your mouth. Now we're going to Trapizzino, which is in Piazza Tralusa. Trapizzino is newer than a lot of the foods that you'll see in this video. It's already become one of Rome's most popular modern street foods. The idea was created by Roman pizzaiolo Stefano Calegari around 2008. The name combines tramezzino, which is a triangular Italian sandwich, and pizza. He told the New York Times, it's a way to get people to appreciate the traditional food of Rome. What you get is a triangular pocket of pizza bianca style dough, crisp on the outside and soft inside, filled with traditional Roman and Italian dishes. It looks like fast food, but the fillings are more like home cooking. You might see chicken cacciatore, meatballs and sauce, eggplant parmigiana, oxtail, hung in salsa verde, or other slow cooked dishes. That's what makes it fun. The format is modern, portable street food, but the flavors are very traditional. The location in Piazza Tralusa is super convenient because it's right as you come over the bridge from the historic center into Trastevere. Now they do have a bunch of other locations around Rome, so just check which one is most convenient to your itinerary. They've got about a dozen varieties, but if you're only going to get one, I'd suggest a classic like their chicken cacciatore, or the meatballs, or for vegetarian, eggplant parmesan. And there are daily specials, which we had today, and they were wonderful. Our next stop is Forno Renella for Pizza Italio, or pizza by the slice. Pizza Italio means pizza by the slice, and in Rome it's usually a large rectangular pizza, or sometimes a large oval. You point to the kind you want, indicate to them how much you want. They cut off the piece with a pair of scissors, they weigh it, and then you pay by weight. Forno Renella is a historic Trastevere bakery, and where you can get bread, souffle, pizza, and other baked things. It's a place to go when you want something quick, but still very Roman. It's famous for its pizza bianca, which literally means white pizza, but in Rome that does not mean a cheesy white pizza like Americans might imagine. Traditional Roman pizza bianca is usually just dough, olive oil, and salt. No tomato sauce, no cheese. It's closer to a delicious flatbread. Crispy, chewy, salty, and oily in the best possible way. You can eat pizza bianca plain, or you can get it split open and have things put inside. A real classic one is with mortadella. That's one of their specialties, but it's not always available. But if it's there, you should try it. That's one of those Roman foods that sounds almost too simple. I mean, bread, mortadella, done. But when the bread is fresh and the mortadella is good, it's absolutely perfect. We're going to Pastificio Guerra, which is a little pasta shop near the Spanish Steps, so it's very convenient when you're going to see that very popular tourist attraction. Pastificio is a pasta shop, a shop that sells pasta, and this one has both cooked, ready-to-eat pastas and individual servings. And they also sell, of course, packages of dry pasta that you can take home and make yourself. Pastificio Guerra is famous with budget travelers because they usually serve a couple of hot pasta dishes of the day, takeaway style, at a very reasonable price for that area. And that matters because near the Spanish Steps, it's very easy to Considering the pasta is already made and ready to serve, it's surprisingly tasty. Now, they don't have a big menu of the prepared pasta. They just have maybe two or three flavors. Today, when we went in, they had a pesto sauce and an amatriciana, so we ordered one of each. One thing to know about Pastificio Guerra is that it doesn't open until one in the afternoon, so if you're thinking of going at noon for lunch, you're going to have to wait a little bit. Next is dessert. Tiramisu at two sizes. Two sizes is exactly what you'd expected. You can get tiramisu in two sizes, and it comes in a little cup, so it's a perfect street food. Tiramisu means pick-me-up, which makes a lot of sense because it's made with coffee, cocoa, mascarpone cream, and sugar, so it's a great afternoon pick-me-up after you've been touring around. The classic version is made with ladyfingers dipped in coffee, layered with mascarpone, eggs, and sugar, and dusted with cocoa powder. Tiramisu is not originally Roman. It's usually associated with northern Italy, especially the Veneto or Friuli, but it's everywhere now, and Romans have clearly decided they're fine with that. At two sizes, you can usually find the classic version along with flavors like pistachio, caramel, strawberry, or Nutella. If it's your first time at two sizes, we'd recommend ordering the classic flavor, but if there are a couple of you, well, then that's an opportunity to order two flavors and pretend it's research. Let's get a classic and a pistachio. You know, we do a lot extensive research. We don't really need more dessert, but we're going to Fata Morgana for gelato. Fata Morgana has several Rome locations, so you could actually pick the one that fits your day. It's known for its natural ingredients and creative flavor combinations. Depending on the season and the location, you might see combinations that include herbs, spices, flowers, fruits, nuts, all sorts of things. This is a good time to talk about how to spot authentic gelato. Beware of giant fluffy mountains of gelato piled high above the case, especially in bright colors. Those are loaded with thickeners, additives, and other artificial ingredients. In short, these aren't the real deal. At a real gelateria, the colors usually look natural, often muted. The fruit flavors taste like actual fruit, and the texture is dense and creamy, not airy and foamy. Because they have unusual flavors, I ordered two I'd never heard of before, ginger and honey and avocado and white wine. It's a little leery of that second one, but both of these were really good. In particular, the ginger was a great choice for a hot day. 99% of the time I order pistachio because that is my favorite flavor, but it is hot, hot, hot today, and plus I figured I'd get out of my comfort zone and try something new. So I have lemon and basil and ginger and honey, and they're both really good. Lemon and basil is so refreshing on a hot day. We're ending our food tour with aperitivo. Aperitivo is one of our favorite Italian rituals. It's the pre-dinner cocktail and snack meant to open the appetite. You'll see Italians enjoying it from about six to eight in the evening. You can have aperitivo at almost any bar in Rome. It does not have to be a famous cocktail bar. You can order a spritz, a negroni, a glass of wine, a beer, or something non-alcoholic, and you'll often get a few snacks to go with it. Sometimes it's just chips, olives, or nuts. Sometimes it's more generous. Some places have a whole buffet or a bigger spread. One of our favorite places is Freni e Frizioni in Trastevere. The name means brakes and clutches because the building used to be a mechanics workshop. Now it's a very popular cocktail and aperitivo spot right near the river. If you want to keep going afterward, you're in Trastevere, so there's plenty of dinner options nearby. Although after this food tour, I doubt you'll have any room for dinner. If you want more tips about eating in Italy, watch these videos next. Ciao for now! A presto!