Osteria Fernanda
Davide Del Duca serves black garlic for dessert at Osteria Fernanda, as a foam with Porter-beer ice cream and fried tubers.
Why go
Del Duca came to Fernanda in 2006 after cooking for Adriano Baldassarre at Tordomatto and Cristina Bowerman at Glass Hostaria. He became a partner in 2010 (Gambero Rosso). Mine is a cooking of the earth,
he told Gambero Rosso in 2022. I love using its roots, I take inspiration from the ingredients, and I measure myself against tradition every day
(Gambero Rosso). The autumn 2026 menu carries a rigatone with a reduction of roots and peelings, aged duck and tarragon (Osteria Fernanda).
A Scatti di Gusto writer ate a black-garlic dessert with beer and tubers in 2017, at a table upstairs facing the open kitchen. She wrote that the beer's bitterness, made into a foam, meets in a fair duel the black garlic, fermented by an oriental technique, so that its sharp, aggressive taste takes on sweet shades of liquorice
(Scatti di Gusto). At the same dinner she had a cappelletto filled with beer and served with foie gras, hazelnuts and mushrooms, the dish that won Del Duca the Birra Moretti Grand Cru prize (Scatti di Gusto).
Gambero Rosso wrote of his amatriciana: You do not often find it on the menu today, but his amatriciana was for years a fixed point at Fernanda, the dish joining old and new, a happy marriage of crispness and richness.
Del Duca builds it from Mangalitza guanciale from the Viterbese, pecorino aged eight months and corbarino tomatoes from the Monti Lattari. He finishes it with a balsamic no older than five years, young enough to give a sweet-and-sour note after a few minutes in the pan
without too much sugar (Gambero Rosso). The Scatti writer called her bucatino a perfect nest of pasta, held together by a creamy, satisfying sauce that is addictive
(Scatti di Gusto). The autumn 2026 menu does not list it, so ask when you book.
The same writer found one fault. Her duck was resistant to the bite, perhaps too much; a few more minutes of heat would not have hurt it.
She ate at tables without cloths, served by waiters without jacket and tie, and did not for a moment feel I was not in a high-level restaurant
(Scatti di Gusto). On the autumn 2026 card dishes run from 16 to 32 euros. Gambero Rosso put the average bill at 65 euros in its 2025 guide (Gambero Rosso). Gambero Rosso's 2024 Trastevere guide found interesting vintages of great wines at honest markups
on the list (Gambero Rosso).
Order this / avoid
- Order: the Spuma d'aglio nero (black-garlic foam) for dessert, which Scatti di Gusto's writer ate in 2017.1
- Order: the bucatino all'amatriciana if it's on, Scatti di Gusto's
perfect nest
(2017).1
What locals & experts say
- Cristina Bowerman, chef of Glass Hostaria (Gambero Rosso International, 2016):
whom I have been closely following since the beginning of his career. I witnessed his growth, evolution and success. His talent is now solid.
8 - The MICHELIN Guide (2023):
In the district famous for its Porta Portese market, this restaurant run by two talented business partners is definitely worth a visit.
7 - Gambero Rosso, Ristoranti d'Italia (2025): 81 out of 100.5
- Joshua Ananaba, Away (2019):
His Trenta Minuti (30 minutes) and Quaranta Minuti (40 minutes) business menus are the cleverest in Rome, impeccable and affordable tastes of Del Duca's cuisine.
9
Good to know
- Where: Via Crescenzo del Monte 18/24, by Porta Portese.
- When: dinner Monday to Saturday, shut Sunday. The business lunches Ananaba wrote about in 2019 are not on the restaurant's own schedule now.
- Tasting menu: a ten-dish menu for the restaurant's twentieth year, served to the whole table. Ask the price when you book on +39 06 589 4333.
Verdict
should-visit — Go to Osteria Fernanda by Porta Portese for Davide Del Duca's earthy, inventive take on Roman cooking, and finish on the black-garlic dessert. Ask about the amatriciana when you book. A dinner ran about 65 euros in Gambero Rosso's 2025 reckoning.