Dar Filettaro a Santa Barbara (Filetti di Baccalà)
Dar Filettaro a Santa Barbara, near Campo dei Fiori, is the perfect place to try Roman-style battered cod.
One of Rome’s specialities, filletti di baccalà might not be so unfamiliar, at least to British visitors: they’re pieces of cod fillet, deep-fried in batter. Nowadays, their usual home is in Rome’s pizzerias, where they’re available alongside supplì and fiori di zucca as a starter, but they’re also the raison d’être of the restaurant Dar Filettaro a Santa Barbara, often called “Filetti di Baccalà”, or simply “La Filetteria”, near Campo dei Fiori.
Set in a little piazza just down the road (Via dei Giubbonari) from Campo dei Fiori itself, Dar Filettaro a Santa Barbara is a small, snug restaurant that triples its capacity in the warmer weather when they put rows of trestle tables out in the piazza. The filetti themselves are complemented by a variety of other deep-fried foods, like slices of courgette (zucchini). There’s bruschette and plates of beans with onion, and there’s beer on tap. You can also get filetti to take away.
Does Dar Filettaro a Santa Barbara / La Filetteria / Filetti di Baccalà offer the best filetti di baccalà in Rome? Perhaps not—although by no means the worst—and they’re not the cheapest either. But when you’re sitting outside on a warm summer’s evening, with a piece of fried cod in one hand and a large glass of ice cold beer in the other, it’s hard to care.