Glossary of restaurant vocab
Navigating the types of restaurants and specific meals you'll come across on your trip to Italy.
Ciao, Raf here.
If there's something I've found both fascinating and confusing is how many names Italians have for seemingly similar types of food and the places you can find said goods.
Turns out that stuffed pasta that I would have, confidently incorrectly, once grouped as “ravioli”, have their own names. Want proof? What if I told you there's at least 6 different types going from ravioli, agnolotti, capelletti, tortelloni to some that don't even sound Italian, like Cjarsons (shout out to Friuli Venezia Giulia region!)
To the untrained eye, they all just look the same. Hell, even the size of the same food will affect how it's called, as is the case with tortellini, tortelloni and tortelacci. That one we just discovered in our latest trip to Modena.
This nomenclature system is also applied to places because of course it is! Meaning that you can very well find the same dish but prepared in different ways and charged at different prices.
Feeling hungry for more history? check out how do you call ravioli in different parts of Italy.
All these eating and learning got me thinking about how confusing was it for us when we arrived in Italy and just wanted to find a restaurant, so I thought it could be a good idea to break down some of the types of food, and the places that serve them, so you can be more precise when you pull out Google maps instead of just typing “restaurants”.
Just a note, I’m keeping this one at high level meaning is more about where you can eat rather than what you should eat. That’s a (big) topic for another time. Maybe several times.
Types of meals
Each meal is a great opportunity to eat something delicious around here. You know it, I know it, but if this is your first time dealing with Italian language it would be useful to know at least what you’re trying to ask for. So let’s start with the basics:
Colazione
Literally just means Breakfast, but be warned that Italian breakfast normally isn't more than a coffee with pastry; A capuccino and a sweet croissant is what most italians call breakfast. There’s this weird unspoken rule about not drinking capuccino after 11am that I still don’t completely understand. It’s allowed but frowned upon.
Few places will have a breakfast menu that includes eggs or something more filling, but you can still find some sandwiches with sliced meat or cheese here and there. More often than not, if you want a bigger breakfast, you’ll want to look for places serving “brunch“.
Pranzo
Pranzo is lunch. Now we're talking. We'll cover the different places you can go to get lunch in a bit, just know that pranzo time is limited between around 12 - 3 pm. We dove deep into this topic already, read more about meal times here.
This is a lesson that we learned the hard way 😔.
The only places that break this rule are big food chains (think Mc Donald's) and some other not Italian places.
Aperitivo
Oooh, this is a good one. If you have never heard of it, you're in for a treat. Ok. So, basically you look for a bar. It could be a cafe bar (we’ll get there in a sec) or a regular one after work hours, 5:30 ish, and order an aperitivo. Aperitivo is an alcoholic drink that comes with some light snacks to open your appetite and prepare you for dinner. Nice!
Some people drink wine, some drink prosecco, but the popular option will always be the Aperol Spritz. It will come with potato chips, olives, sometimes tiny sandwiches or sliced focaccia. Goes from place to place really, so make sure to get some variety!
And lastly.
Cena
This one is dinner. Italians like to eat dinner, so depending on the day of the week, you might need to make reservations because, sadly, more than once we have gone out on a Friday or Saturday just to find out that every place is completely full (even if it the place doesn't seem full, but that's a conversation for another time).
Types of restaurants
When hunger strikes, you're presented with more than one option to go eat. And I'm not talking about chain or no-chain. Here's all about the ambiance and cuisine style.
We talked about the type of food, now let’s talk about the places to get it.
Italians take their food seriously, so depending on what you're looking for, you'll be better at choosing the type of place that would make more sense.
Bar
For breakfast you want to look for a bar. Yup. Just don’t get too excited yet, bars and cafes are synonimous and is here where you typically get pastries with coffee. Now, most bars will stay open all day, offering coffee and alcohol anytime you want.
The three main types of restaurants for lunch and dinner, going from the “fanciest”, are:
Ristorante
This one is easy, the closest translation to restaurant. Generally means sit-down restaurant with top level service to the table and wine menu. These are the places where you would find professional chefs working at, some even famous. Often pricey, but not always. You can find great restaurants that won't break the budget.
Trattoria
A trattoria is pretty close to a Ristorante, but much less formal. Dishes tend to be simpler and are more likely to be run by a family. Here is where you would find the Nonna's recipes passed down.
Osteria
Also commonly run by families, osterias are one level lower in the formality scale. Things are simpler here, the menus are brief and normally will focus on regional dishes and local wines.
In some places, like Bologna, there may be communal seating. Prices tend to be inexpensive and most likely in Italian only.
Quick note on food places: Sometimes you'll see the “-eria” at the end of some words. These are quite self explanatory: whatever place that ends in “eria” is a specialized one: a pizzeria sells pizza, a birreria focuses on beer (birra), a gelateria, gelato, pasticceria, pastries, and so on.
Now, let's talk about drinks.
Taverna
This might sound familiar. These very informal places will focus more on their drinks selection but often will offer finger food, like cicchetti, cold cuts or similar. These are very good options for aperitivo.
Enoteca
This is the place where you want to go to try different wines, specifically regional or local ones. If you’re excited to drink your way through Italy, look no more. Not to say that you won’t find some food in here, but don’t count on it. It’s quite unpredictable, some enotecas offer full course meals and in some you can only find drinks.
In Italy, almost all food establishments will have at least vino della casa (house wine) but enotecas tend to offer a wider and nicer selection of wines.
This is where we’ll stop for now. With this information you are more than equipped to find your next great meal in Italy and bypass the overwhelm when choosing a destination. Knowing where to look is half the battle when it comes to find the right meal.
And there you have it folks, this is a wrap on our month about restaurant culture in Italy.
In July, we’ll go back to our destinations deep dive. Full transparency, we are still debating about which place will be crowned so if you have any suggestions, the polls (comment section) are open.
Until then.