If you're looking for great pizza Emma Pizzeria has one of the best pizzas in Rome; delicious, thin and crispy crust with wonderful top-quality toppings. One of my favorites is pizza topped with buffalo mozzarella and fresh basil; simple and delicious.
Another of my favorite pizzas that Emma does particularly well is pizza with salami using a delicious cinta senese salami.
If a classic antipasto selection of cheese and charcuterie is what you're looking for Emma excels. They have a great selection of handcut prosciutto, and tasty cheeses. Their buffalo mozzarella is outstanding.
Emma's wine selection is solid featuring tasty wines from throughout Italy. I'm partial to Lazio’s Cesanese wine and Emma has some tasty ones.
Emma is privately owned by an individual with background in the restaurant business, but one of the Roscioli brothers has collaborated extensively and supplies the restaurant with freshly baked bread, and its pizza dough recipe.
Like so many new restaurants that attempt to offer a unique, and cutting edge menu, some of the recipes don't fully succeed. My dining companion chose to go classic and thoroughly enjoyed her pizza but I was drawn in to a few of the tempting dishes on the menu. In the end I wish I had stuck with what Emma does best: pizza.
I started with a creamy chickpea soup topped with sliced artichokes and bottarga. I love chickpeas but this soup lacked flavor. I like the idea of the artichoke and bottarga topping but it wasn't enough to compensate for the flavorless chickpea soup.
Next I had poached egg on a tartlet of potatoes with saffron pistils and a Parmesan fondue, garnished with galletti mushrooms. I love poached eggs served almost any way but this dish just didn't work. The tartlet of potatoes was a 1 inch thick round of mashed potatoes; way too thick to work well with the single poached egg topping. A potato latke, or a more flavorful and half as thick round of potatoes would have been better. I’d expected a more abundant Parmesan fondue but instead it was just a few drops, almost unnoticeable in the dish, which also contributed to its dryness and lack of flavor.Â
To fully enjoy Emma stick with what they do best: their outstanding pizzas and assortment of charcuterie.
Emma is in a great location: a short walk from Largo Argentina and Campo dei Fiori, and right around the corner from the Roscioli bakery. From the outside the restaurant looks tiny but when you step inside and walk down the stairs past the pizza oven the restaurant opens up onto a large, bright and airy space that's tastefully decorated in a modern style of blacks and reds.
Emma is open for lunch and dinner and if you feel like a great glass of wine before Emma opens stop by the nearby tiny, no-frills wine bar: Il Vinaietto, Via Monte della Farina, 38.
Seating is limited; there are four or five tables for four. Usually once the tables fill up people gather inside and outside the bar.
Il Vinaietto has a solid selection of wines to purchase by the bottle or case, and every day different wines are on special to purchase by the glass. The vendors are well informed and very helpful in helping you select your wine. Il Vinaietto opens at 18:15 daily. Tel 06-6880-6989; no website.
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