Thursday, March 31, 2022

Rome Journal: Via della Paglia

Via della Paglia (photo: Palickap)

The wait at Tonnarello, the popular restaurant in the old section of Trastevere, is 30-40 minutes. The line serpents out of the Via della Paglia into the crowds filling the other cafes and restaurants which populate the area. Tonnarello is popular due to its modest prices and generous portions. Despite the threats of a new Covid surge from the BA.2 strain and the increasingly darkening cloud spreading over Eastern Europe, there's something immortal in the ballet of the hawkers and waiters, filling orders at lightning speed throughout the streets leading in and out of the square. And it’s not only the French and American tourists. The Italians have literally come out of the closet. How do you make sure the margherita for the Americans at table #3 arrives hot? Good humorously fielding a complaint a muscly tattooed waiter touches the top of a pizza with the back of his hand before removing it apologetically. Then like a magician he pulls a piping hot replacement out of nowhere. A fast-moving Italian kitchen is in fact like an opera, call it Focaccia rather than Figaro. The culinary Haj, the El Camino de Santiago of tourism has started up again with the advent of a precocious spring, its soldiers waving their St George’s crosses, as they crusade against the threat to their pleasures.


read "Rome Journal: The Screaming Pope" by Francis Levy, HuffPost

and watch the animation of Erotomania



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