Il Baffone Trattoria Pizzeria

Dishes mentioned

• Antipasto di Salumi

  This antipasto is a classic one — salumi thrown on a plate with a piece of cheese and some mixed olives. The bread is that typical unsalted bread, what they call 'pane sciocco'. I start with the prosciutto crudo — it's good. The salame gives me pimples, but it's tasty. These are exactly the dishes from Sunday lunches in Puglia at my grandparents' village. My grandfather would cut the salumi and cheeses and hand me black olives like these. It's not special, not iconic, not from free-range animals, but it brings back that family concept that's irreplaceable today.

• Carbonara

  The carbonara is made with rigatoni — short pasta, perfect for carbonara. The pasta is al dente, no messing around. It's a bit grainy, but not runny with egg. Lots of pecorino, lots of pepper — pre-ground pepper, not whole. It's slightly low on salt, but if you take it with the guanciale — which isn't extra crispy but tasty and flavorful — there's tons of pepper, abundance. The egg is cooked, maybe a degree too hot, almost like a little frittata, like your grandmother would make. But I contextualize it to the environment, the clientele, the familiarity of the place — and it works. They were generous with guanciale, hand-cut, big pieces and small pieces, lots of pecorino. It's a carbonara without pretensions, but very faithful. The portion is camionisti-style, abundant — maybe 100-120g of pasta. Way better than many carbonaras I've eaten in central Rome.

• Pappardelle al Ragù di Capriolo

  The pappardelle — I think there's parmigiano and pecorino, lots of it. The pasta is fresh egg pasta, probably from a supplier, hard to overcook — it's cooked perfectly, al dente, lots of sauce. The ragù di capriolo is well-cooked, but you see it's almost all sauce — there's the idea of the fat from the capriolo, you can tell it's a meat ragù, but there aren't visible pieces of meat. It's a bit stingy on that front. It's very flavorful, you can tell it's not a classic mixed-mince ragù, you can taste the game, but it's more the aroma it releases in your mouth than the substance of the meat itself. It does its job. Between the two, the carbonara is better.

• Maialino a Scottadito

  The maialino a scottadito — three little pieces of pork with a piece of untreated lemon. The skin looks beautiful, but it's very dry inside, unfortunately. Very dry. And since there's no sauce, it's just pure, cooked on the griddle, a bit tough to chew. Too bad, because the outside is crunchy and satisfying, the fat part, the skin crackles, there's fennel seed too. I think if it were lamb — abbacchio a scottadito — it would be more moist in the mouth. This is too dry for my taste. And the lemon — I'm still too young to put lemon on meat.

• Patate al Forno

  The patate al forno — perfect. Lots of salt on top, lots of rosemary — fortunately not those needles that stab your throat — and a generous amount of garlic. You can see a piece of garlic clove in there, and you smell it in the aroma. Some potatoes are more beautiful, some are a bit sadder — I steal the best ones.