A THOUSAND BELLS AT NOON

The noted television chef and bon vivant turns in a lively portrait of his native city.

Native, that is, in the technical sense: “I was privileged, perhaps lucky, to be born within the Roman walls,” Romagnoli exults. But in the eyes of other Romans, he’s yet another pellegrino, or outsider, having had the misfortune of not being able to boast “at least seven generations of Romans on both mother’s and father’s side” and, for most of his adult life, of living in the US. No matter: he’s a trustworthy and entirely pleasant guide, despite those flaws. And in any event Romans, Romagnoli tells us in his charming memoir, may be a tad too hyperconscious of being different from the rest of humanity; as a cab driver tells him, on being asked whether he wouldn’t like to do a little traveling away from home, “Why should I go? I figure that if all the world comes to Rome it must be special, must have something better than where they come from. I am here already!” Granting that the place has good reason to think itself the capital of the civilized world, Romagnoli visits corners of the city that, although close to attractions such as the Forum and the Spanish Steps, receive little tourist trade, such as the once unfashionable blue-collar rione, or neighborhood, called the Trastevere and the old Jewish ghetto, site today of fabulous restaurants and antique stores. As he wanders from place to place, he also probes Roman manners, among them the seeming inability of the Romani to go anywhere without talking into a cell phone, the slowly disappearing but still vexing need to stand in long lines to accomplish any kind of official business, and the citizenry’s famed devotion to good food and noisy restaurants: “Food is a serious affair: eating it and talking of it are an important part of the texture of everyday life.”

Readers, mouths watering, will likely be left with a profound desire to head Romeward.