One of the things every one of our Roman guests has puzzled over is what the Italians do for breakfast. Or rather, what they don’t do, which is eat it. So we thought we’d say a bit more about this, in case it is also unfamiliar to you. As you may know, Italians are big fans of coffee; many of them drink a strong espresso, all day long. The first of these can happen at breakfast. Sometimes, it is breakfast. They go into a bar, stand at the counter, and drink the espresso, in one single mouthful. Sometimes two. And then they’re on their way. Italian breakfast, taken care of. We love this ritual so much that we often grab a table (they’re not hard to get this time of day) and watch it unfold, customer after customer.
Coffee Variants
Much of the time, though, Italians drink a cappuccino for or with breakfast. These are typically smaller than Americans are used to (the picture above is an exception!). Italians believe that milk-products are too heavy to drink later in the day, so they confine their cappuccini to the early hours. They are never drunk with or after a meal. There’s a lot of silly stuff going around about the magical hour of 11.00, but it’s less about time than about where you are in your day; it’s certainly a before-lunch drink but Italians eat lunch fairly late by some standards, so you could get away with ordering one at noon.
We’re made of weaker stuff than the Italians, so we choose cappuccino. There’s also the lungo, an espresso with water, in a bigger cup. For those even less hearty than us, there’s latte macchiato, hot milk with a drop of espresso. Or hot chocolate; both are mostly for kids, so you may get a funny look ordering them. Decaffeinated coffees are available at bars and restaurants. We also like orzo, a barley drink without caffeine. It’s in a tiny cup, like espresso, and pre-sweetened. Significantly so. And there’s ginseng, a combination of ground ginseng and coffee. It’s an acquired taste, worth trying if the bitterness of traditional Italian coffee bothers you. You can also find tea or herbal infusions. But if you are a tea afficionado, you won’t be impressed.
Breakfast Pastries
Italian breakfast also, often but not always, includes a pastry. Usually that is a cornetto, aka a croissant. They’re different from the French version, though, in being slightly sweeter. And they are often filled, with crème patisserie, nutella, chocolate or pistachio goo, or orange or apricot marmalade. These are typically freshly baked, and astonishingly delicious. We recommend the pistachio, unless you already know that you hate pistachios.
There are other pastries, of course: you can get things more like a danish or a filled doughnut. Or – in Rome – giant cream-filled pastries called maritozzi (pictured above). Allegedly, these come from Ancient Rome, but we’ve never heard of them before. In any case, they are quintessentially Roman, with a slightly sweet dough with eggs and butter, sort of like a brioche. And they are then split nearly in half and filled chock-full of whipped cream. Regioli (pictured below), is the classic location for maritozzi. Which we happen to live dangerously close to – it is busy all day long. Some Italians eat biscuits/cookies for breakfast. They call them frollini, though, so it’s totally legit. Ditto with the (small) pies and cakes, crostate and torte.
And at home, Italian breakfast is bread with butter and marmalade or nutella. Or someone goes out to get croissants or other pastries.
What About Weekends?
One of our guests asked us, ‘so what do Italians do when they do eat breakfast?’ We have no idea. We can’t find one yet who admits to eating anything besides the above.
That said, a few breakfast and brunch places have begun cropping up in Rome and elsewhere. They are full of non-Italians. The idea of “brunch” seems to be catching on, although the Italians we know like lunch so much that they resent the intrusion of an inferior meal. We suspect that’s some of the reason for the small breakfasts, too: Italians eat dinner late at night, so they don’t need a lot to start the day. (We’ve read that this was originally a matter of class; those who didn’t labour in the fields and had access to sugar ate delicate little breakfasts, which made them popular with the lower classes as well.) That doesn’t mean Italians don’t like breakfast, though: we discovered a website dedicated to it, Io Comincio Bene (designed to encourage Italians to eat a ‘healthy’ breakfast, at home). They just don’t think it should be a big deal.
If you are a eggs, bacon, and sausage kind of person headed to Italy, rest assured that there will be hotels and restaurants in neighbourhoods with tourists to cater to you. We’ve even seen a few passable looking full English breakfasts out and about. But do not, if you are from the US, expect bacon to look familiar; it’s always back bacon, sort of like what Americans call Canadian bacon. This is not an Italian breakfast by any means, but you can still find it!
