Review: L’Arcangelo

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Ahhh, gnocchi – one of my favorite things to eat. Nothing beats light, fluffy, melt-in-your-mouth gnocchi, and where else to get better ones than in Rome?

If you’ve set your heart on trying the gnocchi here, however, make your reservation for a Thursday, when gnocchi is a special on the menu at many restaurants throughout the city. Otherwise, you won’t find it on many regular menus, and the restaurant you visit might not be able to offer it at all. Thursdays are known as Gnocchi Giovedi (Thursday) in Italy, similar to Taco Tuesday, except restaurants actually enforce this by usually only offering gnocchi on this day of the week. And if you’re looking for the best gnocchi in Rome, look no further than L’Arcangelo, a popular and famous traditional ristorante located a few blocks away from Piazza Cavour and Castel Sant’Angelo. While I do confess that their menu isn’t perfect, if you know what to order here, you’re guaranteed to have one of the best meals in Rome. 

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Review: Tickets

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Welcome…to the circus! After El Bulli closed its doors in 2011, the Adria brothers opened up a flurry of new restaurants in Barcelona, the most notable being Tickets, an innovative tapas bar that’s truly pushing the boundaries on molecular gastronomy. Along with being the most avant-garde tapas place in town, Tickets is also known for its notoriously difficult reservation system. Online reservations open up exactly 60 days in advance at midnight Barcelona (BCN) time, and the website often crashes even if you go on the dot. But don’t lose hope if you’re unsuccessful in placing an online reservation – you can call the restaurant the day of to find out if there were any last minute cancellations for that day. Do note that the restaurant is closed on Sundays and Mondays, so make sure to plan accordingly.

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Review: Osteria Barberini

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Deciding where to eat in Rome tends to always be a bit tricky. Sometimes it can be difficult to tell if a restaurant is serving authentic Italian food or whether it’s a tourist trap; most people will tell you that the farther away you are from major sightseeing attractions, the better the food will taste and the less likely you are to be ripped off. Since we only had 3 days in Rome and a limited number of meals, I wanted to make sure that every meal was memorable. When I found out about Osteria Barberini through Yelp, I definitely had my doubts: Was this just another restaurant trying to lure in un-suspecting tourists with their “special” truffle menu, or were they something much more? Time to find out.

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Review: Frenchie

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While I was doing research for my Europe trip on Paris’s most-loved restaurants , I began to notice that the name “Frenchie” would come up over and over again. When I dug a little deeper, I found out that this restaurant was reputed for serving some of the best food in the city at very reasonable prices as well as being one of the most sought-after establishments in all of France. I also discovered that the reservation process was notoriously difficult: Bookings are accepted exactly 21 days before the date of the reservation (they fill up fast!), and while the restaurant does have an online LaFourchette page, your best bet is calling them directly. For me, since I was calling from outside of France, I added some money to my Google Voice account and called via Google, which I also highly recommend to those planning to call internationally. After waking up in the middle of the night and going through several failed attempts the days before, you can imagine just how ecstatic I was when I finally placed a successful reservation at Frenchie for May 31, 2016.

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