Clotilde Restaurant, Spirits and Cocktail Bar in Rome, Italy

Posted by Rowena Dumlao Rowena Dumlao - Giardina 3/30/2017

Clotilde Restaurant, Spirits and Cocktail Bar in Rome, Italy

Who is Clotilde? She is a refined woman who puts extreme attention to the needs of her guests and always ready to share the best in her cellars and kitchen. A woman who is able to create magic on her table where conviviality lives in beautiful moments of staying together. She is the icon of savoir fare in the mind of her son, restaurateur Clemente Quaglia and for this reason, he named his restaurant after her for which the place stands for.

When the doors of Clotilde open, you set foot in a place where the end of the century merges with contemporary accents in an elegant, cozy and relaxing atmosphere to dine, drink and socialize. It's the new place to go at Piazza Cardelli, right in the heart of Rome, and within walking distance to some of the city's major sights - Ara Pacis (300 meters), Piazza di Spagna (800 meters), Piazza Navona (600 meters), and Pantheon (450 meters).

Photo above from Clotilde's site.

Clemente Quaglia has already been in the restaurant business for twenty years, his first being Clemente alla Maddalena, also in the heart of the Capital and just a few steps from the Pantheon. He conceptualized Clotilde thinking primarily of what he would like to find in restaurants - a pleasant service for lunch, a place where you can take your friends for the long Roman evenings and where you can have traditional dishes that are adapted to the modern needs of the diners, especially lessening the fat content through better cooking techniques and sourcing the ingredients from the countrysides of Rome, Latina and Frosinone. With less kilometers they travel, the freshness and quality remain high.

The recent opening of Clotilde at the beginning of March, gave the city another place to reach out to the gastronomic scene where tradition rests with interesting innovations of flavors by its chef, Giorgio Baldari, from Terra Madre and Allenza. He runs a kitchen where the principles of the Slow Food Movement are respected - good, clean and fair, taking extreme care in choosing the right products.

The menu embodies traditional dishes that the chef orchestrated well with his own style, using quality ingredients from Lazio's regional producers emphasizing on areas of Rome, Latina and Frosinone. During the opening night on the first week of March, a selected few of the dishes in the menu were served for tasting. The dishes were all excellent with the Italian flavors playing together with the new combinations. It's definitely a lovely gastronomic trip, Clotilde style.

Top left: Cannellone ripieno di manzo con fonduta di Parmigiano Reggiano e tartufo (Beef stuffed cannelloni with Parmigiano Reggiano and truffle sauce)

Top right: Polpette di manzo al pomodoro (Beef meatballs on tomatoes) & Polpette di agnello con carciofi (Lamb meatballs with artichokes)
Bottom left: Stracciatella di burrata con panzanella al negativo di pomodoro (Burrata cheese with panzanella bread and tomatoes)
Bottom right: Torta al gorgonzola con composta di pere e noci (Gorgonzola cheesecake with pears and walnuts)

Millefoglie croccante di carciofi e porri con baccalà marinato (Crispy layers of artichokes and leeks with marinated raw cod fish)

When you are in Rome, dine at Clotilde, one of the city's newest additions dedicated to genuine Italian cuisine. Aside from the restaurant, they also have a spirits and cocktail bar where you can enjoy their drinks accompanied with some hors d'oeruvres before or after dinner.

Three photos above from Clotilde's site.

Vivo sempre fuori casa e, anche quando non lavoro, ceno e pranzo al ristorante così ho voluto creare un luogo ove chi, come me, è sempre in giro, potesse mangiare anche tutti i giorni, con prodotti di ottima qualità e grande piacevolezza per lo spirito e il corpo.

- Clemente Quaglia

I always live outside my home and even when I am not working, dinner or lunch at the restaurant, so I wanted to create a place where people like me, who are always going around, can eat well everyday with products of optimum quality and great pleasure for the spirit and body.

- Translated to English (Clemente Quaglia)