Food & drink · Anzio

Ristorante Alceste al Buon Gusto

Opened in 1927 and still run by the same family, Alceste al Buon Gusto is the restaurant that Anzio's fishing community built its reputation on. The menu changes with the daily catch, the pasta is made by hand each morning, and the dining room smells exactly as a proper Italian seafood restaurant should.

What to Order

Start with the antipasto di mare — a procession of small plates that might include marinated anchovies, raw sea urchin on bruschetta, battered courgette flowers, and a cold cuttlefish salad dressed with local olive oil and parsley. It sets the tone for everything that follows.

The signature primo is spaghetti alle vongole veraci, made with the small, intensely briny clams pulled from the sandbanks just offshore. The pasta is cooked al dente and the sauce is barely more than clam liquor, white wine, garlic, and good oil — a lesson in restraint.

For a secondo, ask what came off the boats that morning. The waiter will tell you without hesitation, and whatever they recommend will be grilled simply over wood and served with lemon and nothing else.

The Setting & Atmosphere

The restaurant sits close to the old port on Via Flora, a short walk from the fishing quay. The interior is old-school trattoria — tiled floors, framed photographs of the harbour in the 1950s, paper tablecloths — and the noise level is cheerfully high at lunch.

Book ahead for Friday and Saturday dinner in summer; the place fills with Romans who drive the 60 km from the capital specifically for this table.

Practicalities

Lunch is the main event here, typically served from 12:30 to 15:00. A full three-course seafood meal with house white wine runs to approximately €35–45 per person.

The house wine is a crisp Frascati from the Castelli Romani hills — the classic local pairing for Lazio seafood and worth ordering by the carafe rather than the glass.

Watch