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    La Cicala e La Formica

    4.3 (63 reviews)
    ModerateMediterranean, Italian
    Closed 12:00 pm - 3:30 PM, 6:30 PM - 10:30 PM

    La Cicala e La Formica Photos

    LA CICALA E LA FORMICA ATMOSPHERE

    What's the vibe?
    Moderate noise
    Casual
    Intimate
    Romantic

    Recommended Reviews - La Cicala e La Formica

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    Clara T.

    We came two times and the owner is really nice and sweet, really not pushy and eager for new clients. The food is excellente and the drinks are always cold. The staff is nice!

    Primi della tradizione amatriciana
    Brian K.

    Nice, cozy, restaurant to enjoy an evening meal. Staff was good, with an older gentleman as our waiter, who was super friendly and a little funny. They understood our English way better than our rubbish attempt at speaking Italian. Food was great! Both of us had a pasta dish, shared a salad and an appetizer. House wine (by the glass) was pretty good too. Very relaxed atmosphere inside; street side dining could be a bit loud day or night with the amount of traffic through the area.

    Amatriciana
    Danielle S.

    This place was recommended by a friend living in Italy. My husband and I are both Itlaian but from a different area. The food was excellent and the host great. He recommended a taste of a Amatriciana and a pasta with butter and Alici. Both were great. The Amatriciana among the best we've eaten, with a delicate but defined taste of guanciale, cooked a bit on the crunchy side as I like it. We also tried a gateu and a Parmigiana. Gaetano explained all the dishes and the local.ingredients he sources and that he was so proud of.

    Entrance to the restaurant

    We were staying at the Grand Hotel Palatino on a tour, and left on our own for dinner one night we checked out nearby restaurants. This place is only one block behind the hotel. The ambiance was fantastic. Don't know if they do it every night, but tonight they played jazz from the 30s, 40s, and 50s. Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, etc. Interesting artwork and wine displays on the walls. We had the Caprese salad, Bruschetta with anchovies, Spinach Ravioli, and Rigatoni Carbonara. Each was very good, the Carbonara especially stood out since it was so much better than a penne Carbonara we'd had the night before at a restaurant close to the Colosseum. For dessert, we had a tiramisu and a pistachio ice cream. Both were outstanding. Service was good, we had no problems communicating even though we speak only English. If we had any more time in Rome we would definitely eat here again. If we can ever return I'd be delighted to visit it again.

    Best risotto I've ever had - zucchini and blue cheese. Wow!
    Dolores S.

    This was a wonderful find! We had an excellent dinner here with the best bread in Italy! The service was warm and gracious and it felt very homey inside the restaurant. Enjoyed the food a lot. Amongst other delicious dishes, I had a zucchini and blue cheese risotto which was amazing, one of the best dishes I had on this trip, and I am now in a delicious carb coma. The tomato and mozzarella bruschetta was very tasty too. We shared the bucatini, the sauce was flavorful and delicious, the pasta was silky and tasty. Wine was great and reasonably priced and we used the Yelp coupon with no problem at all. Great dinner right next to the hotel, just what we needed after a long day of sight seeing.

    May not look like much from the outside, but trust me, the staff care about your dining experience and the food is wonderful. First, FORGET your American expectation for service ...... there is ONE chef in the kitchen and EVERYTHING is cooked to order; AKA, made fresh. I know this because I took advantage of a pasta making class (which is AWESOME). The DOWN TIME is meant for YOU to connect with one another. If you are in a rush/hurry, it might help if you simply inform the wait staff ASAP. This place is usually very busy, therefore, staff may be a bit overwhelmed. I've been eating here since 2006 and make a serious effort on EVERY Rome trip to eat here multiple times. GREAT value for the money. (I'm the female in the solid black top on the back row)

    Mary Anne G.

    I had dinner at this restaurant on my first night in Rome. A month and a half later, I ordered the same meal (pork steak with potato chips). Be sure to get the red house wine! It's the best red wine I've ever had!

    This is what we got....
    Karen J.

    Ok... I'm gonna just post some pictures so that you can see what the review photos looked like and what we actually got.... now... we did ask for veggies instead but that wasn't the problem...

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    9 years ago

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    7 years ago

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    10 years ago

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    14 years ago

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    10 years ago

    Friendly enough with tasty food! Nice atmosphere with the fairy lights and outside seating.

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    8 years ago

    If you go to Rome and you don't eat here YOU ARE INSANE. Amazing food, could not recommend it more. Wow. WOW.

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    12 years ago

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    8 years ago

    great food ! casian atmosphere .. good price..... great people ..good prices ....casual food

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    9 years ago

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    10 years ago

    It's a very cosy restaurant. The food is delicious and the owners are very kind and easy-going. The tiramisù is amazing. A presto!

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    Page 2 of 2

    La Cicala e La Formica Reviews in Other Languages

    Review Highlights - La Cicala e La Formica

    Our breakfast consisted of a pastry (one of the best we had in Rome), eggs, orange juice, and coffee.

    Mentioned in 13 reviews

    Read more highlights

    Le Tavernelle - Lobster pasta

    Le Tavernelle

    4.5(167 reviews)
    0.2 kmMonti
    €€

    Our first meal in Rome was here, and I'm so glad it was here. We arrived on Christmas Eve and…read morewanted a good meal. Our hotel manager had suggested another restaurant, but I was apprehensive to try, but did later, more on that restaurant review in it's own post. I rather did what I should have done throughout the trip to, which is to search google for local reviews. This tactic I found to be much better than to trust American reviews for restaurants to visit from Youtube or even here, just because the American touristy taste tends to favor bland or Olive Garden style pseudo Italian. The real Italian taste is much different and something one needs to develop. I was familiar with European Italian food, as I had said before in other reviews that Mexico has better Italian food outside of Italy. Additionally, the good restaurants here in Italy do not open before 7 PM. If it does or if someone that looks foreign to Italy is outside trying to lure you in, it's a tourist restaurant with iffy flavor. At this restaurant my husband had the Lobster pasta and I had the spinach/ricotta ravioli, and we both were beyond satisfied. We also had the artichoke as an appetizer, and trusted the waiter with his suggestion for a bottle of wine. He must have been some genius because the wine went well with our meal. The ambience was cozy and very family oriented, however, the rain outside made it romantic for us. Another key point for this restaurant and it traditional flare was that they brought out the olive oil and red vinegar for our salad and of course olive oil for our wonderful home-made bread. I'm so glad we chose this place for those of us Americans who understand culinary cuisine.

    Great first meal in Rome!…read more I loved my artichoke pasta dish with bacon, it was a daily special. The amaretto dessert was delicious! Carbonara was super al dente. Seafood risotto was fresh. Grilled radicchio was like stir fried. Dinner for 3 for 77 euros, impressively busy for a Tuesday night. Friendly staff, easy for English speakers. :)

    Photos
    Le Tavernelle - Inside dining area

    Inside dining area

    Le Tavernelle - Squid and seabass

    Squid and seabass

    Le Tavernelle - Interior restaurant

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    Interior restaurant

    Al Forno della Soffitta

    Al Forno della Soffitta

    4.6(302 reviews)
    1.7 kmTermini
    €€

    Super pizza place with a lot of other great stuff on the menu…read more I looked with envy at the other tables who were enjoying spectacular plates of spaghetti with mussels. * * * That said, my pizza was a grand slam home run. Many of their pizzas are quite elaborate With all sorts of exotic ingredients. I went super simple. Gorgonzola. Mozzarella. That's it. Just enough Mozzarella to cut the Gorgonzola and make for a good melt. * * * If you have never had a gorgonzola pizza, you have never lived. Just sayin'. * * * P.S. My lovely wife got a Norwegian salmon pizza. The Norwegian salmon was stacked up high on her pizza As if she was in the World Series of Poker and she was a big winner. I have never seen so much salmon on one plate. After our meal, I made a discreet phone call to the Norwegian embassy in Rome asking them if they still had any salmon left. The woman at the embassy assured me the Norwegian salmon supply was fine. That surprises me given all the salmon that was on my wife's pizza.

    Rome trip March 2025 This place was hella busy. There was…read morearound a 40 minute wait for inside dining. However, they had apparently started having dining "outside" which consisted of a few tables-for-two on the sidewalk. My brilliant wife came of with the idea of asking if we could just take two of those tables next to each other so she dined with one daughter and I the other. We probably looked a little funny as we got up to share plates between the table but hey, we were seated in 5 minutes. Car traffic wasn't too bad so that wasn't a distraction though it was amusing seeing delivery bikes coming and going sometimes even returning constantly to the restaurant. Clearly a very popular place. I have to hand it to our waiter, he did a fantastic job serving not just the outside but his inside assignments as well. Guy got his steps in for sure and yet he smiled and was kind through the evening. Not a sign of stress at all. Love that. Food-YUMMY! Since we were on separate tables I didn't my normal "Wait let me take a picture first!" moments lol. We got the Fried Mix to start off with which. I personally ordered a pasta carbonara and the daughter I was sitting with got a margherita pizza. My wife ordered the chicken which was thinly cut breaded chicken slices. I ordered a red (Montepulciano d'Abruzzo) to go along with my meal. Don't have all the foodie pictures because of our split tables but trust me it was all fantastic.

    Photos
    Al Forno della Soffitta - Pizza oven

    Pizza oven

    Al Forno della Soffitta - Mussel and clam soup

    Mussel and clam soup

    Al Forno della Soffitta - Taken 3/23/2025

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    Taken 3/23/2025

    La Cicala e La Formica - mediterranean - Updated May 2026

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