TO Rome, a new seafood restaurant opened just a week ago in the Esquilino district. Is called Gallo Fish Restaurant and perhaps, almost unconsciously, he has given the neighborhood back a good address for fish cuisine which in truth has always been here for at least twenty years. Those who have a good memory will perhaps remember that atEsquiline – 50 meters from where Gallo is today – it was there until a couple of years ago Octavius which for many Romans was the safe place to eat quality fish, raw first and foremost. The pandemic marked the end of it, but perhaps it had still had its day. So welcome Rooster!
Gallo opens in Rome
Peering through the large windows that look up Via di Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, you can glimpse the room: sober but elegantly decorated, white tablecloths, glasses and polished cutlery. A style which, looking at it from the outside, does not anticipate what is instead the great strong point of this restaurant: a traditional seafood cuisine, made without certain frills of “gourmet” catering but with the technical knowledge that this presupposes. Chef and owner of the Gallo restaurant Lorenzo Gallo. “I, and most of the team involved in this activity, have worked on The Tino with the chef Lele Usai and if this new adventure has begun, we owe it to him.”
Therefore a great gratitude linked not only to the important professional experience gained in Fiumicino between the starred Il Tino and the pop proposal of the 4112, but also because when Lorenzo confides to chef Usai that he would like to open his own restaurant in Rome, the chef does not He only welcomed this news with enthusiasm but made himself available to help Gallo in finding the position. “Chef Usai found this place in the heart of the Esquiline. It was mid-October 2023 – says Lorenzo – the chef called me to tell me that there was a place to see in the Santa Croce in Gerusalemme area. We went to see it together and even though there was in fact some work in progress and many more to do, I immediately understood that this was the right place to open my restaurant”. And so, between restructuring and some inevitable bureaucratic delays, the official inauguration took place on April 20th.
What you eat at Gallo’s
Very fresh raw materials, all mainly from the Lazio coast that Lorenzo Gallo personally selects almost daily, including Wednesday which “would” be the closing day of the restaurant and therefore his rest day. “I bought a refrigerated van so I can go to auctions of Fiumicino but also to Naples when necessary. I choose the best fish and bring it very fresh here in Rome.” Gallo says that if in his restaurant he offers a very classic seafood cuisine, from his long experience in the starred restaurant of Fiumicino he has learned the fish processing technique including the ability to almost completely eliminate waste. “We use everything from the fish. Bones, heads, carapaces which are perfect parts for making all the stocks that we then use to flavor various dishes”. The menu is slim with 4 or 5 dishes per course. The choice of starters is wider in which, together with the raw platter, there are various classics of seafood cuisine such asmussel sautéone delicious fried squid to dip in tartar sauce and of mascordini stew. Even between the former and the latter, a series of timeless classics as well made as the spaghetti with lupins, potato gnocchi with seafood and also mixed grill and a rich one Catalan crustacean dish. The homemade bread is good, a loaf that arrives warm to be dipped in extra virgin olive oil.
Substance in the dishes and elegance in the dining room
We are there to take care of hospitality, service and wine list in the dining room Claudia Turcocompanion of Gallo and Valentina Ferrante both previously in Usai’s team. They manage very well in this large restaurant which is fully operational accommodates 50 people, but now in this first running-in phase we are taking reservations up to a maximum of 40. If the dish comes with a substance that almost recalls that of a seafood restaurant, in the dining room we move with elegance, recovering from the starred experience certain precautions that they are good for any type of catering. One for all: clean the table of crumbs and other things before the dessert arrives! Drinks are chosen, for now, from a very basic wine list which will certainly undergo variations and expansions over time. Meanwhile, a good choice of labels from Lazio, some French names and some stand out a total openness to both natural and conventional drinking. However, things are good at Gallo, in a strangely retro environment for a team with an average age of no more than thirty. Absolutely honest account for this seafood cuisine, which roams the 55/60 euros per person for a complete mealobviously excluding wine.
Gallo fish restaurant – via Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, 29 – Rome – Facebook page
