Canestrato, Ricotta and Pecorino: A Trastevere Cheese Walk

Most Roman food tours treat cheese as something that arrives on a board next to the salami. This one stops at a cheese shop that has been trading for a century and takes it seriously: canestrato, ricotta laziale, pecorino, tasted across different ages so the difference between a young pecorino and one left to harden is something you register rather than read about. The rest of the route covers the Roman canon properly. Handmade biscuits at the start, crisp and made from almost nothing. Supplì, filled with meat sauce or cheese or black pepper. Roman pizza by the slice, from the plain marinara with tomato and garlic to whatever the baker felt like that morning. Carbonara, made the way it is made here, with guanciale (cured pork cheek, not bacon), pecorino and black pepper. Artisanal gelato at the end. Wines come from Lazio. The walk runs from Tiber Island through the Jewish Ghetto and into Trastevere, past the Portico d'Ottavia, which has stood since the 2nd century BC with the market and the synagogue grown up around it. Groups are kept small. The tour runs in English and Italian; other languages on request. Meeting point is in front of the Sora Lella restaurant.