The first red flag is a laminated menu. If you waltz past a menu that is laminated and a little worn, it’s fair to assume it doesn’t change often. According to Chaplin, this means the restaurant isn’t honouring a key part of Italian cuisine; seasonal ingredients. If the menu promises asparagus during winter or spinach in summer, you should keep walking. The same goes for a menu permanently printed on a sign outside, which Chaplin calls out in a later video.
On the flip side, if menus or specials are scrawled on to chalkboards or paper, they’re likely based on what fresh produce is good that day.
2. Shorter is sweeter
If your menu looks more like an English picture book with a dozen pages, be wary. A restaurant with a large range of options, including popular western items such as burgers or Caesar salads, is a red flag. Why? Firstly because Italians make Italian food best, but secondly because offering so many options means the restaurant has to keep a large amount of ingredients on hand, so they may not be as fresh or high quality.
If you’re handed a one-page menu predominantly or entirely in Italian, you’ll know you’re in the right place.
In a later video, Chaplin compares a menu with dozens of options on a sign to one of “the best seafood restaurants in Rome”, which has just 30 or so options on the one-page menu.
3. Avoid restaurants with ‘hype men’
A great Italian restaurant allows the food to do the talking, not a hype man. If you’re been hassled by a waiter with a menu outside, who is pressuring you to sit and dine, be wary. You are likely in for an expensive and average meal.
Chaplin said she had visited a few great restaurants where a waiter was standing outside, but their job was to put you on a wait list or guide you to a table, not convince you to eat there.
4. Keep in time with locals
The final tip requires travellers to keep an eye on the clock. If a restaurant is busy or open outside of Italians’ typical eating times, they’re likely catering to tourists.
Chaplin explained that authentic restaurants will typically open for lunch from 12pm to 3pm then close until dinner at 7.30pm or 8pm.
This may be later than people are used to, Chaplin adds, but it’s worth the wait.
Her final tip wasn’t a red flag but advice for those eager to have dinner at a high-quality Italian restaurant place; book ahead.
Chaplin said good restaurants typically book out in advance, particularly during peak tourist season, making it difficult to get a table if you walk in.
As for how to find a great restaurant, the Herald asked a handful of top Kiwi chefs, food writers and restaurant critics how they approach dining abroad. Experts such as Al Brown, Simon Gault and Nick Honeyman share their tricks of the trade from chatting up hotel concierges to frequenting farmers’ markets.
