Seeking “Limoncello Status” in Rome

Getting recognized as a “regular” at a restaurant in Italy can have many benefits but it takes perseverance, a lot of pasta, and many carafes of wine before achieving such high dining status.

Photo by David Farley

The food at Luzzi, a 75-year-old restaurant sandwiched between the barn-like basilica San Giovanni in Laterano and the Coliseum in Rome, is not particularly memorable. The menu consists of affordable Italian fare and Roman classics. The owner, a balding, jovial fellow (and avid AS Roma supporter) is always darting about from the table-crammed interior to the boisterous outside dining area, sometimes barking orders at the Greek waitress.

When I lived in Rome for a few months a number of years ago my then-wife Jessie and I made it our regular spot. Why? For what happened on one unseasonably warm November night. We’d been frequenting the place for about six weeks and on this particular night, after paying our bill, the Greek waitress walked by and plunked the plus-sized bottle of limoncello down on our table. We’d seen the bottle go around since we began eating at Luzzi. We’d watch with envy as locals would, post payment, linger at their table sipping their boozy lemony beverages as the bottle sat there, signifying that they were regulars.

Now the bottle was at our table. And with that we became locals. At least at this restaurant. “Regular status” has benefits in Italy: a shorter wait time for a table, occasional discounts, the allowance to linger longer, and, of course, all the complementary lemony liqueur we could drink after dinner.

It was the holy grail of travel: getting local status. Many of us have a yen to fit in, to look like we belong while on the road. We’d don brash muumuus to go native, trading one bad fashion plague for another in an attempt to avoid looking like that guy in the khaki shorts and Tiva sandals carrying the Lonely Planet guidebook (a travelers vs. tourists argument, anyone?).

Such trivialities tend to cause anxiety among travelers. Case in point:  My parents once flew from Los Angeles to New York to visit me. On the first day, somewhere on the streets in SoHo, I asked my dad why he didn’t bring his camera out. My mom answered for him: “He doesn’t want to look like a tourist,” she said.

I gave my father a once over, noting his shorts, polo shirt, and bulbous bright white sneakers with white tube socks sprouting out of them, and said, “Well, dad I have some bad news for you.”

He paused. And then I added, “Camera or no camera, everyone knows you’re a tourist.”

“Why?” he asked incredulously.

“For starters you’re wearing shorts,” I said.

“But everyone except for you is wearing shorts,” he said, and then he began pointing at people. “He’s wearing shorts. She’s wearing shorts. That whole family is wearing shorts!”

“Yeah,” I said, “you’re right. But guess what, dad? They’re all tourists too. Just. Like. You.”

He sighed and we recommenced our stroll in silence to whatever tourist site I was taking them to.

But sitting at that table at Luzzi, I was no longer the shorts-wearing equivalent of a tourist in Rome. I was a local! And I relished in it. But then I eventually moved away from Rome and so went my limoncello status at Luzzi. But five years later, I came back to the Eternal City to finish working on my first book.  And I had a taste for limoncello again. Jessie and I went to Luzzi the first night we arrived. I had visions of the bald owner or the Greek waitress giving us an open-arm greeting, perhaps kisses on each cheek, and seating us right away.

That didn’t happen. In fact, despite my long looks, they never even recognized us. And at the end of the night, the only thing that appeared on our table was the check. So, I made vow: I was going to find a new place and we’d go there until we achieved “limoncello status.” There were conditions though: it had to be largely patronized by locals and it had to be good. I wasn’t going to sacrifice unforgettable food this time for local status.

Carbonara at Da Enzo. Photo by David Farley

So we tried a new restaurant every night until a friend recommended we check out Da Enzo, a salt-of-the-earth joint in the backstreets of the Trastevere neighborhood. As we turned the corner, a bevy of hungry Romans lingered in the cobbled alleyway in front of the restaurant. We were the only non-Italians from what I could see (and hear). A good sign. A better sign was the huge-portioned pasta dishes: golden carbonara bolstered by unctuous guanciale; a spicy arabbiata sauce laced with whole cloves of garlic; and a meaty norcina sauce doused over rigatoni.

We began going at least three times per week. We were far from getting the limoncello treatment–Da Enzo, it turned out, didn’t actually follow this tradition–but the main waiter, a portly middle-aged mustached man, began giving me a familiar nod when we’d walk in. And, after month of regular appearances, when I’d call to make a reservation, the staff would recognize my voice, perhaps because of my halting Italian: “Ah, ciao Davide. Si, ci Vediamo stasera,” they’d say: see you tonight.

I’d made inroads at Da Enzo that I felt we’d finally earned the coveted “regular” appellation. But then one night I walked into Da Enzo expecting my usual nod and a swan-like sweep of the arm to my table. Instead I got an incredulous look from a new waiter. Perhaps the mustached waiter had a deserved night off. We were eventually seated and the food was as good as always. As we nursed the last dregs of our carafe of wine and scooped up the remnants of our pasta sauce with pieces of bread, the new waiter approached. He said in English that they need the table and then set the check down. This almost never happens in Italy. I was baffled. I looked around, noticing that the other regulars–all Italian and also nearly finished with dinner–hadn’t been asked to leave. Just us. The foreigners. The non-locals. I protested, saying in Italian that we come here all the time and that no one else had been asked to leave. “I’ve never seen you before,” the waiter said, shrugging.

And with that, our limoncello status–my craving to be accepted as a local–was swiped away from us as quickly as our table was cleared for the next costumers. When I walked out, I might as well have been wearing shorts, a polo shirt, and big white sneakers. And for good measure, a huge camera or selfie stick in my hand.

Last year I was in Rome and staying with a friend in nearby Monteverde. I walked by Da Enzo one early evening hoping I could re-live all those great dinners of my past there. The carbonara was the best I’d ever had. As I turned the corner, a long line snaked away from the door of the restaurant. I knew something was wrong. First of all, if you see a line of people in Rome, they’re not Romans. Then I heard the foreign accents. Everyone in line was a tourist (or at least a non-Italian). Many were holding guidebooks. Word got out about Da Enzo and now it was a tourist magnet. There is no “limoncello status” at Da Enzo anymore. The plague of over-tourism finally afflicted the restaurant. The locals have gone elsewhere.

I have to admit: schadenfreude did wash over me a bit. It also made me realize in that very moment the futility and impermanence of my quest for “limoncello status” in Rome.

I shrugged and walked to the back the of line and got behind the last person waiting.

“So,” I asked the couple standing in front of me, “where are you from?”