Jewish-Roman Food: The Cuisine Most Visitors Never Try

Alex and Alena at a Roman market with carciofi romaneschi — the artichokes used in carciofi alla giudia, the iconic dish of Rome's Jewish Ghetto

By Alex, co-founder of Your Friends in Town - private food tours of Rome

Most people who visit Rome eat Italian food. Fewer eat Roman food. And almost nobody eats Jewish-Roman food - which is a shame, because it may be the most interesting, historically rich cuisine in the entire city.

I've been walking through the Jewish Ghetto for over twenty years. Every time I take guests there on one of our private food tours in Rome, it's the same reaction: they didn't know this existed. And they're not wrong to be surprised. This is a cuisine that most guidebooks mention in passing, if at all. But it's one that shaped the way all Romans eat to this day - and understanding it changes how you see the whole city.

A cuisine born from restriction

The Roman Jewish community is one of the oldest in the world - Jews have lived in Rome for over 2,000 years. But for 300 of those years, from 1555 to 1870, they were confined to a small walled district beside the Tiber, subject to frequent flooding, severe overcrowding, and strict restrictions on what they could buy, sell, and eat.

In 1555, Pope Paul IV issued a decree confining Rome's Jewish population to a small walled area beside the Tiber - what is now known as the Jewish Ghetto. They were forced to wear yellow hats in public, locked inside the gates at night, and allowed only the most basic produce. He even sent the bill for building the wall - 300 soldi - to the Jewish community itself.

What happened inside those walls was remarkable. With limited access to good produce and no money to waste, the community developed techniques that turned the cheapest, most overlooked ingredients into dishes of remarkable sophistication. Frying wasn't just a cooking method - it was a way of transforming scraps into something worth eating. The artichoke leaves that nobody wanted, the cod that was left over at the market, the zucchini that was too cheap to sell elsewhere - all of it became food worth travelling for. The results are still on every menu in the Ghetto today.

The dish you need to eat: carciofi alla giudia

If you eat one thing in the Jewish Ghetto, it's carciofi alla giudia - Jewish-style artichokes. A whole Roman artichoke, pressed flat, double-fried in abundant olive oil until the outer leaves turn to something resembling the world's best crisp and the heart remains impossibly tender and buttery. No breading, no flour, no shortcuts - just artichokes, oil, salt, and a technique that takes years to master.

This dish is over 500 years old. When Sephardic Jews arrived in Rome after being expelled from Spain in 1492, they brought with them a Mediterranean tradition of cooking with olive oil - at the time a luxury that most Romans couldn't afford. The artichoke, prepared with that same generous use of olive oil, became the defining dish of the Ghetto. The name tells you everything: alla giudia means "in the Jewish style."

Do not confuse it with carciofi alla romana - the Roman version, stuffed with herbs and braised gently in white wine. Both are excellent. They are completely different dishes. Ordering the wrong one in the Ghetto is the kind of mistake you only make once.

The best season for carciofi alla giudia is spring, when the carciofo romanesco - the round, tender Roman artichoke with IGP protection - is at its peak. Come in April or May and you'll see them piled in baskets outside every restaurant on Via del Portico d'Ottavia, women stripping the tough outer leaves with practiced speed. It's one of the most Roman sights in the city.

What most visitors - and even most Romans - don't realise

Here is something that surprises even Romans: many dishes they think of as typically Roman actually originated in the Jewish community.

Supplì - those fried rice balls filled with tomato sauce and mozzarella that you'll find on every bar counter in the city - have their roots in the Jewish Quarter. So does the tradition of frying in olive oil. The use of offal in Roman cooking - tripe, sweetbreads, pajata - is widely attributed to the Jewish community, who roasted these cuts before cooking to remove any trace of blood as required by kosher law, a technique that spread into the broader Roman culinary tradition.

The two cuisines have been so intertwined for so long that it's almost impossible to separate them. Jewish-Roman food isn't a subset of Roman food. In many ways, it is Roman food.

Beyond the artichoke: what else to eat in the Ghetto

The Ghetto's food is not just about artichokes, though you'd be forgiven for thinking so based on the restaurant signs. Here's what else deserves your attention:

Concia - zucchini sliced thin, fried in olive oil and then marinated in white wine vinegar and fresh mint. It arrived with the Sephardic Jews from Spain in the 15th century and has barely changed since. Simple, seasonal, and with a flavour that's sharper and more interesting than it has any right to be.

Fiori di zucca - squash blossoms stuffed with mozzarella and anchovy, battered and deep fried. This is street food elevated to something extraordinary. The combination of creamy mozzarella and salty anchovy inside a crisp, delicate flower is one of those things that sounds bizarre and tastes perfect.

Baccalà - salt cod, fried in a light batter. The cod has Spanish origins and arrived with the Sephardic community. In 1661, papal authorities banned ghetto residents from eating "luxury" foods, restricting them to oily fish — mainly anchovies and sardines. Baccalà became a staple not by choice but by decree. It remains one of the most beloved dishes in the Ghetto today.

Aliciotti con indivia - anchovies baked with endive and herbs. A dish born of poverty - anchovies were the cheapest fish available from the market just outside the ghetto walls - that became a classic worth seeking out.

And then there's Forno Boccione. No sign on the door. You'll find it by the queue outside and the cakes visible in the small window. It's famous for two things: pizza dolce ebraica - not a pizza but a dense, crumbly sweet bread packed with nuts, candied peel and glacé cherries, made to a recipe dating to the 16th century - and crostata ricotta e visciole, a sour cherry cheesecake that is genuinely one of the best things you can eat in Rome. Both are sold out by midday. Both are closed on Saturdays for Shabbat. Plan accordingly.

When to go and what to know

The Ghetto is at its best on weekday mornings, when the neighbourhood belongs to its residents rather than its visitors. The main restaurant strip is Via del Portico d'Ottavia - almost everything worth eating is within a short walk of this street.

A practical note: most restaurants and shops in the Ghetto are closed on Friday afternoon and all day Saturday for Shabbat. If you're planning a visit specifically for the food, go Monday to Thursday. Sunday morning is also excellent - Forno Boccione opens early and the streets are quiet.

One more thing: ignore the waiters standing outside restaurants with baskets of artichokes. The places that need to tout for business on the street are not the places you want to eat. Walk past, find a table inside somewhere that looks full of locals, and order whatever they're having.

Why this neighbourhood matters

I take every guest through the Jewish Ghetto because I think it's the key to understanding Rome. The city's food didn't develop in a straight line from ancient Rome to the present. It was shaped by waves of people - the Sephardic Jews who arrived from Spain in 1492, the papal restrictions that forced a community to be creative with almost nothing, the slow blending of two culinary traditions over five centuries.

When you eat carciofi alla giudia in the Jewish Ghetto, you're not just eating a very good fried artichoke. You're eating the result of 500 years of adaptation, ingenuity, and survival. That's what food in Rome is, at its best. And that's why, after more than twenty years of eating my way through this city, I've never stopped finding it interesting.

We walk through the Jewish Ghetto on both our Private Morning Food Experience and our Private Full Day Experience. If you'd like to discover this neighborhood properly - and eat rather well while you're at it - you can find out more about what we do and how to book.