The following highlights some of the popular Traditional Vatican Foods. If you manage to be in an Vatican restaurant or you are visiting Vatican City, I recommend the following:
1. Cannoli
Cannoli is an Italian dessert from Palermo. Sicilian cannoli is one of the richest and most elegant desserts. They are deep-fried tubular dough shells filled with a delicious creamy filling. For traditional cannoli, the filling is traditionally made with fresh ricotta feta cheese, but sometimes you can also find sweet cream. This cheese is mixed with vanilla, chocolate, pistachio, Marsala, rosewater or other flavours.
2. Gelato
One of the Vatican’s greatest cultural contributions, ice cream is nature’s most appealing flavour, with no artificial preservatives or other additives! Although it is called gelato, ice cream is usually thicker and lower in fat than ice cream.
3. Chicken & Mushroom Risotto
Risotto is more than just a rice dish: it’s a hearty and satisfying meal in its own right. There’s nothing like a decadent creamy risotto. It’s pure comfort food. This chicken and mushroom risotto is a perfect example. This delicious creamy mushroom risotto gets more weight (and flavour) from the chicken.
4. Tiramisu
Tiramisu, perhaps the Vatican’s classic and tastiest dessert, is a delicious blend of coffee, cocoa and sweet mascarpone cheese. Translated as “pick me up”, this iced dessert consists of savoiardi biscuits soaked in coffee, then topped with delicious mascarpone cream cheese and sprinkled with cocoa powder.
5. Fettuccine Alfredo
Alfredo sauce is a sauce used to flavour pasta. Initially, it contained only parmesan cheese and butter, but now, in addition to these ingredients, masa or heavy cream is often added. Some variations include parsley, garlic, eggs, vegetables, seafood or chicken. It is made famous by the restaurant Alfredo alla Scrofa in Rome, owned by Alfredo di Lelio. There are many versions of Alfredo sauce. Sometimes a small amount of batter or béchamel is used to thicken the butter and cheese sauces. Other variations include eggs and heavy cream. It is traditionally served with pasta.
If you found this list useful, here are some more Traditional European Foods to try out on my Pinterest channel.