Hostaria Costanza

Normally not one to write a bad review. I was so excited for this place. The restaurant is beautiful. I was very excited to dine here as the reviews were excellent. Basically my gripe is that our waiter hyped up the “special” of the day which was, what he called, a “veal T-bone steak”. Okay, that’s great. I’ll try it. Turned out to be a deep fried veal T-bone steak served with French fries. I truly doubt that was the “special”. I did not hear him advertise this special to any of the locals. Can’t imagine a local would want this as their meal. I was very excited to go in and try an amazing authentic Roman restaurant, but I was duped by my waiter. My wife had caccio e peppe and that was delicious according to her. Our appetizer was nice as well. Just disappointed that I was identified as an American and duped into getting something deep fried with French fries. Also, I should mention that when the waiter brought me my food he was making heart beat sounds that got faster and faster. Just felt like he was making a commentary on the deep fried nature of the dish, which I was unaware of. Don’t convince a customer to get something and then poke fun at them.

We have been here twice now, and both times it was excellent. Each time we started with a sampler platter of pasta. There were four of us and they made sharing portions of a truffle pasta, amatriciana, rigatoni bolognese and gnocchi with red sauce. They were all fresh and tasty. We almost didn’t have room for their signature entree, the suckling pig. Do not miss this dish. The pig is cooked just right and has a delicious flavor. Just to make sure we were totally full, we also had some lamb to round out the dinner. While not quite as special as the pig, it was really good. Oh, and the whole dinner takes place in a beautiful cave setting that is very cool. We really like this place.