Ba’ Ghetto

Skip it. Way too many good options around to settle for this spot in my opinion. The service is was really bad and the food was tasteless.
My husband had the 4 course menu and I had grouper ravioli… all bland.
We had a bottle of wine; which was the only thing that saved dinner, luckily!

Traditional Jewish artichoke, falafel, and dip mix. Fantastic! We went for a late lunch and sat outside. The service was not good at all outside but I’ll attribute it to us being there at 2 – 2:30.

The food was very fresh and tasted good. we had salads and split a margarita pizza. The place was very busy and the service slow but the food was good.

We ate here twice during a trip to Rome in March. Food was delicious and all the better with artichokes being abundant and in season. Pasta was yummy and pizza excellent. Welcoming service for me and my son dining on the early side.

Location was perfect. It was a beautiful restaurant but that is about all it has going for them
The food was just ok. The servers were not friendly and get ready to Pay 3 euros for some water.. .. but what do you expect in a tourist trap! and location location location!

I would highly recommend this place! We got the hummus platter with falafel and a potato birakus as well as a couscous classico and shish kebab. The food was amazing and very fresh. The service was a little slow due to the amount of people in the restaurant but it was well worth the wait!

I’ve certainly experienced better. Better food, better service, and better prices.
For food I ordered the «cigars» for starter. Pasta Norcina and Israeli Salad (I think), to drink I ordered tap water and mint tea.
I start with «tap water.» They brought me out a large glass bottle labeled «still». I asked if it was tap water, they said «no, it’s still water.» When I told them I didn’t want still water, but tap water — water from out of the sink, they fixed the problem, thankfully. I will chalk it up to a misunderstanding, and not them wanting to have me pay for water.
Cigars (food, not tobacco product) were okay, although it would have been better if the dough was thinner, and the meat was softer and a touch more flavorful. On top of that, they are overprices at four euro for two cigars.
Pasta was good. The sauce was pleasant, the pasta was cooked «al dente» (which works with this dish), but it was too long… which may work for spaghetti or angel hair, but not for this kind (the wide kind). Sausage in dish was good in that it added the salty aspect to the dish. They were a little overcooked, but it seemed to work with the dish overall. While I liked that the portion was small (so you have room left over for second course an onwards) but for how small the portion is, the price is 3 times higher than it should be.
Salad was worse. A scantily dressed collections of shredded lettuce and tomatoes… nothing exciting AT ALL, again, way overpriced.
Mint tea was the only thing with redeeming value. Good price good flavor… however I question the addition of Chickpeas, and would like it a touch less sweet.
Service was not so much as slow, but inconsistent. Cigars came out fast, pasta took a while, salad came after pasta (not before) and bread came after appetizer. No butter or oil with the bread.
Bread does come up on the bill, but that is, according to them a service charge, are some restaurant have.

Stopped in here this afternoon for a quick bite because I had been exploring Rome on foot since 7am and was hungry, plus desperately needed to use the restroom. It was right by one of my fav fountains (la fontana di tartarughe) that I discovered in the Jewish quarter and it had lemoncello and tiramisu, which I had been wanting to try in Italy.
Granted, maybe stopping in a kosher restaurant to try two very Italian things may not have been the best choice in hindsight, but as they say it is ²⁰⁄₂₀.
The service was pleasant enough and I wanted something to break the sweet of the lemoncello/​tiramisu, but I didn’t want a full meal as I still had plenty of the city still left to walk. I ordered their eggplant rolls which came w/​tuna and melted mozza. They were pretty good.
Now here is why the two-​stars. First, bread was brought to the table, w/​o me asking for it, but no olive oil or balsamic was on the table nor offered (though I could see several other tables around me had some). Here is the kicker for me, I was charged 1.5 € for bread I didn’t eat?! I hate places that do that. Don’t bring me something I didn’t ask for and then charge me for it! It is like mexican restaurants that charge for chips & salsa that they bring to your table.
Second, the tiramisu was abysmal. And, I mean bad. They served it is a glass cup, which I have no idea why, but the ladyfingers were so overly soaked they were just plain soggy and then having to fight through all the cream at the top of the cup meant the texture balance that is such a big part of good tiramisu was asymmetric as… well you get the point.
Also, the Americano I had was extremely bitter yet weak, how they managed to pull that off is a mystery.
All that disappointment for a whopping 21 €!

Food was bland. Ordered a salad that came with literally no dressing. Chicken was undercooked, and seemed to have no seasoning at all. Could barely get the waiters attention for the bill, which took far longer than I’ve ever experienced.

Good food. Terrible service. Few people inside. Had to fetch our water. Twice. Asked for bread. Reluctantly gave us some. Won’t go back or recommend

Wire in Food!
As soon as we sat down in this restaurant, we seemed to be treated differently than the rest of the patrons. We asked for a bottle of «still water» and they brought us the same bottle of water that was on every other table. Only ours had a different bottle cap! I figured that it was simply tap water and it was included, –nope, it was on the bill at the end. This was followed by very poor service throughout the meal. Other reviewers have said that they take care of locals and «put up» with tourists. That is how we feel we were treated. Looking around, it was indeed mostly locals, all seemingly enjoying themselves quite a bit. This was one of about 60 restaurant meals this trip. 9 other restaurants in this same neighborhood. This was the worst service of the trip.
The meal was so-​so. We had a humus plate, salad and two entrees and a bottle of wine.
The worst part was that on my last bite of the pasta dish, I felt a flash of metal across a tooth filling. I removed the mouthful and found a 1 centimeter long piece of wire in the meat. It looked like a strand from a wire grill cleaning brush.
I asked to talk to the manager. Two gentlemen came out to talk to me. One was quiet, the other said he didn’t believe me and that I was mistaken. He then picked it up and examined it and seemed to agree that it was a piece of wire but then repeated that he didn’t believe me and walked away with it. I asked for my bill and the check came with a couple of cookies that the server said «was for your trouble». We paid our bill and left.
Grill wire bristles have been known to perforate the stomach or intestine walls and do serious damage requiring major surgery and prolonged recovery. Grill brushes can and do lose their bristles, so should be avoided and coiled stainless steel brushes be substituted. I do hope that anyone reading this, locals & tourists, avoids eating here until the management cleans up their act.
Date of meal: September 19, 2015 — — Ba’ Ghetto — — Via del Portico d’Ottavia 57, Roma

Yummy kosher food with amazing service! I would definitely recommend this place if you keep kosher and are visiting Rome! We started off with the dip plate, the babaganoush was amazing! (All we were missing was the pita :)). Then we had the Israeli salad, and I ordered the lamb and my boyfriend ordered the steak. The lamb and potatoes were okay but the steak was out of this world! I would definitely go back.

The Service: Service is slow… I guess that is common in Italy. Take a while to get our server’s attention. Yes, not that attentive.
The Food: A little bit pricey for the portion they served. The pasta is okay, not too much flavor. The hummus and falafel are so so too. My favorite is the deep fried artichoke. I see a lot of «grilled» artichoke but first time trying deep fried. Because it is deep fried so basically everything is crisp and edible.
They have nice patio seating area, perfect place to people watching… since the service is kind of slow.

A delicious dairy Kosher restaurant that serves authentic Italian cuisine. I ate dinner 2 nights in a row and enjoyed eggplant parmigiana, artichoke truffle pizza, buffalo pizza, fried artichoke, and ravioli. The portions were generous. The waiters were friendly and entertaining. One criticism is that the waiters brought a basket of bread and water automatically to our table, but did not inform me that there was a charge for those items. The second night, I specifically declined the bread basket.

GREAT spot in the old Jewish ghetto in Rome! My wife and I stumbled upon this on our second day in Rome. We went at around 3 in the afternoon so it wasn’t crowded but the service was excellent.
I had the gnocchi alla Sorentino, while my wife had the fried artichoke (AWESOME) and falafel. We both really enjoyed our meals, and would definitely go back!

Totally overrated place, they just ignore you when they see you are a tourist, and they treat all the locals like gods. We had pizza and water and when paying they charged us for bread and when we noticed that and told the waiter, he made a point out of telling us it was for outdoor seating and not bread. Just disgusting and disrespectfull. Would never go there again. They do not even deserve that single star.

Despite lackluster service, the food here is great. They probably have my favorite carciofi alla giudia in all of Rome, and a surprising and wonderfully spicy amatriciana. A great place to have lunch after visiting the Great Synagogue, or taking a stroll through the Ghetto at night.
Note for non-​Jewish tourists: this is a kosher restaurant, and there are two separate locations — a meat and a dairy. They are about 50 paces apart from each other on the same street.

I hated this restaurant. It was a waste of 16 euros! I had the fried artichoke. I found 95% of it to be inedible. Only the heart was edible. Then I had the spaghetti carbonara. The little bits of salty meat were horrible, in my opinion. Way too hard and way too salty. But the worst part was the pasta itself. It was so undercooked. It was beyond al dente. It was hard and extremely chewy. It tasted like boxed spaghetti that wasn’t cooked nearly long enough. It was simply inedible.
The flavor wasn’t bad, but it was so undercooked that I couldn’t eat it. I asked for the bill and left after only a few bites. I found the waitstaff to be rude and inattentive, although there was one female waitress there that was nice. I’m still hungry, so I will go try to find a sandwich or a pizza somewhere else for lunch today.

Like a few have said before me (but not nearly enough), one of the absolute best meals I ate while studying abroad in Rome. The food was so fresh and tasted homemade, and it was Kosher.
I recommend starting with the artichoke — it’s what they are known for. I got the ravioli bolognese and it was beyond delicious. Nothing beats freshly made pasta and I know that was fresh. The raviolis were al dente and the sauce had great flavor and the meat was not just typical ground beef — it tasted so much better.
This is a great place to try when you want a romantic dinner away from the tourists and in the heart of Rome.

My first mistake was arriving for dinner at 8 — absurd by Roman standards.
When in Rome, beat the Roman dinner rush, I say.
That Ba’ Ghetto serves up a unique segment of Roman cuisine, specifically that of Jewish heritage, made this easily one of the most memorable meals I’ve had to date in my two years in Europe. Only in this corner of the town would one find artichokes served up in more ways than one.
The nearby Portico ruins, clearly within view from our table on the sidewalk, made my humble yet lovingly prepared tripe and artichoke taste simply epic.

Hier hatten wir unser unterhaltsamstes Mahl in Rom!
Das BA GHETTO ist ein jüdisch-​koscheres Restaurant.
Die Kellner sind überaus freundlich, schnell, hilfsbereit und immer für einen Scherz zu haben.
Zum Schluss gab es noch einen Grappa aufs Haus.
Hier unbedingt die Artischocken probieren. Es gibt sie gedünstet (a la Roma) und frittiert (jüdische Art).
Die Cous-​Cous-​Varianten und der koschere Wurst-​Vorspeisenteller haben uns ebenfalls wunderbar gemundet.
Die Preis-​Leistung: es ist nicht ganz billig — aber es stimmt.
Das Interieur: schlichte Eleganz, weiße Tischdecken, dunkles Holz.
Draußen gibt es für die Raucher ein paar Tischchen.
Beim nächsten Rom-​Besuch sind wir mit Sicherheit wieder im Ba Ghetto!