BlackMarket Hall

  In the heart of Rome, Monti district is an area you can easily lose track of time and place. The neighborhood’s beauty is wherever you put your eyes on. It is full of ancient monuments, small romantic streets with beautiful yellow lights, and all the little details you dreamt of when imagining a visit […]

How to Spend Saturday in Monti

Monti, a tiny quartiere tucked away beside the Colosseum, might be small in size, but it has a lot packed in between its walls. Its history is varied and colourful; hardly surprising for the area which grew up alongside the Roman Forum, the political heart of the Roman empire. The original red-light district, in Roman […]

Ristorante Vista by Casina Valadier

Hundreds, if not thousands of photographs are taken everyday from the top of the Pincian Hill. Il Pincio as it’s known in Italian, overlooks Piazza del Popolo and offers one of the best views across the Rome skyline. This elegant space was designed by Roman architect Giuseppe Valadier to link the hill with the piazza […]

Roma Beer Company

  With such an abundance of tourist attractions situated in the historical center, it’s easy to see why large numbers of travellers spend most of their time there. Whilst the grandeur of the Colosseum, Trevi Fountain or the Forum is not to be missed, there’s certainly more to Rome than just checking off the big […]

Osteria Margutta

Just a side step from the main shopping strip, Via del Corso, lays Via Margutta. A quiet street with a color palette of earthy terracotta brown, amber and orange. Trailing ivy and wisteria plants climb across the stone buildings and give the road a secret garden feel. The rushed pace of the city center, which […]

La Vi

It feels like we are back in Chicago. This is my first thought upon entering La Vi. Reclaimed wood, rustic metal touches, and industrial style lighting are mixed with more modern touches, such as velvet-upholstered chairs.  It’s the same look that characterizes much of Chicago’s up and coming west side where the trend of fashioning old […]

Taki Ristorante and Sushi Bar

In the window of Taki, a Japanese restaurant just off Piazza Cavour in Prati, I notice the familiar signs seen in sushi joints around the world. As impressed as I am at the techniques involved in making fake plastic models of food, these trite displays don’t usually fill me with confidence about the quality of […]

Ramen Bar Akira

Until just a few months ago, on the corner of Via Ostiense and Via Pellegrino Matteucci stood a very sad and tired stationary shop. Eventually, the signs in the window offering cheap photocopying were replaced by closing down notices and the doors shut for the final time. Later, building supplies and other signs of life […]

Tiramisu’ Trastevere Roma

  Rome, or better Italy, is famous for its incredible food, from pasta to pizza (just to name a couple of stereotypical foods we are most known for). Although around the world it may seem as if we only know how to do those two dishes, our cuisine is, in fact, quite vast. Desserts, for […]

Obicà and Campo dei Fiori

  Campo dei Fiori, the small square located near Piazza Navona, has gone through more than a few transformations. The name, which literally translates as “field of flowers”, was given to the area in the Middle Ages because it was just that: a field which lay undeveloped until the 15th century, possibly because of its […]