proloco DOL {rome}

It used to be pretty easy keeping up with the restaurant scene in Rome, since it really didn’t change that much. I’m not exaggerating when I say that some of the same waiters who I knew as a child are still serving in the same restaurants that I now go to with my own kids. And when magazines like Food & Wine used to ask me for a ‘new’ list each year, I’d sometimes have to redefine the concept of ‘new.’ Things just didn’t happen.

While most of my favorites remain unchanged, there has been a recent explosion of new restaurants, bakeries, street food stands and gelaterie. Updating both the blog and  my app has become an exciting – although time consuming – enterprise.

But while there has been a slew of new openings, I’ve learned that not all of them stick around, or live up to their initial promise. So I take my time. I give them a few months to settle in, and then I like to go back once the initial shine has worn off.

Which is all to say that for the next few weeks I’ll be playing catch up with some of the best of the recent openings in Rome over the last year.

I’ve written about Vincenzo Mancino before. His store, D.O.L. is one of the best places in Rome to buy rigorously sourced regional products. He’s now expanded and has moved across the street and opened Proloco, a restaurant featuring the cooking of Rome and Lazio.

Using the same carefully sourced organic and local ingredients, he’s developed a menu that changes daily, but always speaks Roman. Hearty dishes like sausages and potatoes, veal stew and roast chicken pair well with seasonal sides like escarole with pine nuts and raisins or baked radicchio.

When my friend Beatrice was in town a few months ago we made the trek out to Centocelle to check it out. The space is large and airy, and half of the place is taken up by the shop, with its case full of cured meats and cheeses, shelves of beans, jams and pastas, as well as the large open kitchen. The dining room is warm and cozy, with a mish mash of wooden tables and chairs, and antique shelving.

We dived deep into the menu, starting out with the mixed cheese and meat platter. Capocollo, salami and prosciutto was served on a wooden board along with four kinds of pecorino and two small crostini topped with ricotta and honey.

The pasta was a toothsome tangle of  home made tonnarelli tossed with broccoli romano and guanciale. We couldn’t resist the house specialty of D.O.L.pette, tender meatballs cooked in a tangy tomato sauce.

Unfortunately the pizza is served only at night, but toppings like Amatriciana and Gricia, both of which make ample use of home cured guanciale, sounded like a good reason to come back soon.

Before I left I stocked up on cheeses and salamis, as well as a few slices of porchetta (because, why not?) as well as a huge loaf of rustic bread from Lariano. If Proloco was any closer I wouldn’t be shopping anywhere else. But at least with the restaurant, I now have another reason to end up here.

Proloco DOL
Via Domenico Panaroli 35
06.243.00765
Closed Sundays