Where to eat at and around Donna Camilla Savelli

You are on the uphill side of Trastevere, where Via Garibaldi leaves the lanes and starts to climb the Gianicolo, and the hotel's wall keeps the quarter's noise below you. The hotel has a restaurant and a bar bistro off the cloister, and breakfast in the garden is, in the reviews, the meal guests write about most. Downhill, within eight minutes on foot, is one of the densest stretches of eating in Rome, and the trick is to walk past the first twenty tables you see. All seven addresses below are on the Gianicolo side of Viale di Trastevere, the side that keeps its residents: six in the lanes, and one, Antico Arco, up the hill.

Worth the table

The tables at this hotel that are a reason to come, and how hard they are to get.

Contempo

Chef Emidio Gennaro FerroContemporary Roman cooking read through Campania, in the former conventDinner only

The hotel's dining room was called Il Ferro e il Fuoco until June 2025, when it was renamed Contempo with the same chef, Emidio Gennaro Ferro, who is from Salerno and cooks Roman dishes with Campanian ingredients and memory behind them. The room is the convent rather than a restaurant fit-out: high ceilings, the garden of citrus trees outside and, in summer, tables in the cloister. Order the roast octopus, which the hotel's own page calls the signature dish, or take the Origini e Contaminazioni tasting menu. Italian coverage puts dinner at 19.00 to 22.00 and a Monday closure, which the hotel does not publish, so check when you book. Neither Contempo nor the hotel appears anywhere in the MICHELIN Guide.

Reserve ahead

Elementa Lounge Bar & Bistrò

All-day bar and bistro off the cloister, and where breakfast happens

Elementa is the room most guests actually use, and it carried the name The Garden until the hotel rebranded it. It sits off the cloister with the Italian garden beside it, and the bar counter was built to repeat the concave and convex curves Borromini used on the facade outside. The cocktails are themed on Roman noble families, which is the sort of thing that either lands or does not, but the reason to care is breakfast: it is served here and, when the weather allows, at tables in the citrus garden, and in winter in the Sala Borromini, the former refectory. It is the single thing guests mention most often in reviews. It is excluded from the Classic and Classic Family rates, at about 30 euros a head, so read what your rate includes before you arrive.

Walk in

On our shortlists

Within ten minutes on foot

Antica Pesa
3 min walk
Roman dining room, since 1922 · €€
Two hundred metres down your own street, in the Panella family's hands since 1922 and now in its fourth generation, with a cellar of more than 1,100 labels and an executive chef, Simone Panella, whose stated method is respect for the tradition and its reinterpretation. It is listed in the 2026 MICHELIN Guide without a star, in the guide's moderate price band. Its own site gives Monday to Saturday from 19:30, and the guide gives Sunday closed. Dinner only.
Reserve aheadVia Garibaldi 18
Trattoria Da Lucia
5 min walk
Family-run Roman trattoria, no frills · €
A few tables in a lane off Via Garibaldi, family-run and trading, its listings say, since 1938; it no longer has a website of its own. The menu is the Roman canon done without ceremony, and the bill is what Trastevere charged before the tour groups arrived. Its listings give lunch and dinner from Tuesday to Sunday with Monday closed, so check before you walk down.
Reserve aheadVicolo del Mattonato 2b
Zia
6 min walk
One MICHELIN star, contemporary Italian · €€€
Antonio Ziantoni's small restaurant on a residential street behind the busy part of Trastevere, with one star in the 2026 MICHELIN Guide and a kitchen that treats Italian regional cooking as raw material for something more precise. Its own site gives dinner from Tuesday to Saturday, 19:00 to 21:30, and lunch on Saturday from 12:30 to 14:30; the guide adds Sunday and Monday closed. The room is small enough that booking is the whole job.
Book well ahead: tables go weeks outVia Goffredo Mameli 45
Glass Hostaria
7 min walk
One MICHELIN star, creative cooking · €€€€
Cristina Bowerman's restaurant in a former carriage workshop on one of the busiest lanes in the quarter, its star confirmed again in the 2026 MICHELIN Guide, and the guide's dearest band. It is a deliberately contemporary room on a medieval lane, which is the point, and the tasting menus are where the kitchen is at its best. Its own site gives dinner from Wednesday to Sunday, 19:00 to 22:30, lunch on Saturday and Sunday from 12:00 to 15:00, and Monday and Tuesday closed.
Book well ahead: tables go weeks outVicolo del Cinque 58
Dar Poeta
7 min walk
Roman pizzeria, queue and all · €
The pizzeria named for the dialect poet Belli, with his sonnets on the walls, and the answer when you want to eat at four in the afternoon or at half past eleven at night. Its own site gives every day from 12:00 to midnight without a break, and tells you plainly to arm yourself with patience and wait your turn; it says nothing about reservations, so go early or go late.
Walk inVicolo del Bologna 45
Checco er Carettiere
8 min walk
Trastevere institution, trading since 1935 · €€
Behind Piazza Trilussa, a story that its own site starts in 1935 and that Checco's granddaughters still run, with a take-away and a pastry shop as well. The kitchen is Roman and unapologetic, fresh fish alongside what it calls a poor cuisine full of flavour, and there is an internal garden for eating in the open air, away from the bustle. Its own site gives every day, 12:00 to 15:00 and 19:00 to midnight, which makes it the reliable Sunday lunch on this list.
Reserve aheadVia Benedetta 10
Antico Arco
8 min walk
Gourmet dining room, Gianicolo hilltop · €€€
The one address here that is uphill rather than down: on the Gianicolo near the Garibaldi museum, at the top of the climb Via Garibaldi begins outside the hotel, open since 1996, with Fundim Gjepali in the kitchen and a cellar of more than 1,200 labels that is half the reason to climb. Refined rather than rustic, and the quiet alternative when Trastevere is heaving. Its own site gives the address and a booking page but no opening hours, so check when you reserve.
Reserve aheadPiazzale Aurelio 7

Breakfast

Breakfast is not included in the room-only rates. Every category except the Classic and the Classic Family can be booked on a bed-and-breakfast plan, which added 100.50 euros for two people for two nights in February 2027, about 25 a head a night; the Classic rates can add it only at check-in, and the hotel does not publish what the desk charges. It is served at Elementa, the bar bistro off the cloister, and in the Italian garden among the citrus trees when the weather allows; in winter it moves into the Sala Borromini, the former refectory. For a counter and a cornetto instead, Caffè Settimiano at Porta Settimiana is six minutes down the hill.

What to skip

The places on Via della Paglia and around Piazza di Santa Maria in Trastevere with a queue down the lane, a laminated menu in four languages and a no-bookings policy that is really a marketing plan. The wait is the product. Everything above is a few minutes further on and takes a reservation, or is Dar Poeta, where the queue at least buys a pizza.

The best places to stay in Rome

Ten hotels, each here for a different reason.

See all

Compared with

Questions people ask

Good questions about Donna Camilla Savelli

Where can I eat near Donna Camilla Savelli?

Where should I eat at Donna Camilla Savelli?

Contempo. The hotel's dining room was called Il Ferro e il Fuoco until June 2025, when it was renamed Contempo with the same chef, Emidio Gennaro Ferro, who is from Salerno and cooks Roman dishes with Campanian ingredients and memory behind them. The room is the convent rather than a restaurant fit-out: high ceilings, the garden of citrus trees outside and, in summer, tables in the cloister. Order the roast octopus, which the hotel's own page calls the signature dish, or take the Origini e Contaminazioni tasting menu. Italian coverage puts dinner at 19.00 to 22.00 and a Monday closure, which the hotel does not publish, so check when you book. Neither Contempo nor the hotel appears anywhere in the MICHELIN Guide.

Our verdict

Book it for the building: the monastery Borromini began in 1642, its facade, cloister and garden still there and the church still working next door, at four-star money in a city that charges far more for far less. Take a Deluxe Room, the one category the hotel itself says was converted from the cells, ask for the garden side, and eat in Trastevere.

Check availability on

Last checked: September 2026

Donna Camilla Savelli · From about

€220 a night

Prices on