The Spicy Spatula

Happy Friday, folks!

Ready for day three in Rome?

This day started off with a three hour tour of the Vatican. Now, I will admit that I am not a religious person but I do love art & history and I know that sometimes this is how we get to see some art, most especially the Sistine Chapel (Cappella Sistina) so we started our tour bright and early.

Click the photos to get the full beauty of them!

Before I get into the tour, let me tell you that you ABSOLUTELY MUST book the tour ahead of time and I recommend that you join a skip-the-line tour or else this will end up being an all-day event.

To the tour! It was all right. I did learn something cool about the origins of St. Peter’s Basilica/Square. It was an interesting story and I love any day that starts with me learning something new. But it was a hot day and so incredibly packed that it was hard to really enjoy (or photograph) anything. Most of the time it was wall-to-wall people with tour guides competing to be heard over one another.

There were a lot of what I’ll call junk rooms too. There were no explanations or history to some of the items other than, “This pope wanted to show off all of his cool things so here they are” and that was it.

I’m glad for the experience but it is one I will never repeat, especially because the entire reason–Sistine Chapel–was a hot mess. It was too packed to stop and really explore all the panels and they pretty much herded us out of there like cattle. If all you want to see is Sistine Chapel might I recommend a small, private tour of that only.

But the good news was that after perusing the grounds of the Vatican it was time to eat. WE didn’t wait around to get into the Basilica because our tour was on a Wednesday and the pope was in so it didn’t open until well after our tour ended.

LUNCH

We stopped at a place called Il Margutta, a “mostly” vegan restaurant. It was weird really because this was the opposite of most restaurants that you find in that it was a vegan restaurant with some non-vegan options.

Because it was hot, we kept it light. I ordered Amatriciana-style eggplant meatballs in an incredibly delicious tomato sauce with fresh herbs, and topped with vegan Gondino cheese. It was light and tasty and very satisfying.

He ordered seitan paillard topped with arugula, avocado, tomato, asparagus and a lemon citronette. It was good and well-seasoned.

The rock stars at Il Margutta were the cocktails. I ordered a cocktail called The Golden Hour which contained tequila, mezcal, cayenne pepper, ginger and a few other things that escape me now but it was delicious with a capital D.

After lunch we headed to the da Vinci Museum which was an incredible experience, I must say. It wasn’t planned but we found ourselves resting in a piazza and on our way out we saw it and said, “Why not?”

It was amazing. This man wasn’t just a painter, he was an inventor and a scientist, a true Renaissance man. Did you know he created the great-great-grandfather of the SCUBA gear? The tank? Bicycle? It was a great time and if you go, spring for the audio guide for an extra 3 euros.

Then we planned to head to the Villa Borghese, which we did and stopped for water near the Temple Diana, but the tickets were sold out and we ended up just exploring everything else around the villa before dinner.

DINNER

Dinner at Rifugio Romano was definitely one of the meal highlights. We started off with something they called fried baby octopus which was really a mix of mushrooms with seaweed and a delicious cornmeal-based breading. Lemon juice and dipping sauces on the side and we gobbled it up like we hadn’t eaten for days. The arancini ball was filled with risotto, peas and vegan cheese. It was tasty but not much different than any other arancini ball.

I ordered setian with mushrooms in red wine (Montepulciano) reduction that was FANTASTIC. The potatoes were not fresh and they were only all right but the seitan and sauce was incredible.

The hubs ordered seitan steak with porcini mushrooms in a lemon and white wine sauce. It was also very good but I liked mine much better. The restaurant is quite small but there is outdoor seating available as well, and the best part is that it is fully vegan so the entire menu is yours to choose.

If you choose Rifugio Romano as part of your Rome vegan culinary experience, make a reservation or risk waiting, or worse, being turned away altogether.

Day three was a culinary success, but the entire day was amazing. I saw so much art that my heart was ready to burst with colors and textures and history. It was truly a day to remember…as you can probably tell from my excessively long post today.