La Pergola

La Pergola review 2 Users say 4/5 Rate it

Heinz Beck is, without a doubt, the most talented chef in Rome right now. But it's not just his technical dexterity and unerring instinct for taste and texture combinations that impress. It's also the fact that, in over ten years, the German chef has not missed a single sitting at the rooftop restaurant of the Cavalieri Hilton hotel, which was finally awarded its third Michelin star in 2006. Once known as 'the chef who doesn't do pasta', Beck is letting Italy get to him: half of the primi are now pasta dishes - including, if you dine here in late spring, some melt-in-the-mouth tortellini di ricotta e pecorino con fave (pasta parcels filled with ricotta and pecorino cheese, served with shelled broad beans). On our last visit, we were also wowed by a heavenly dish of courgette flowers, fried in a light batter, served with assorted saffron-flavoured crustaceans. Alongside the main menu and the dessert menu, there is also a water list, a tea list, and a wine list in two volumes - one Italian, the other international. Markups on wine are very steep. But €300 for two with a good bottle of wine still compares favourably with restaurants at the top of the gourmet ladder in London or Paris - and they don't have an almost aerial view of Rome.