Just a few steps from Porta Pia, Osare is one of the new addresses in Roman dining to keep an eye on. Davide Nasso and Omar Staniscia’s restaurant focuses on a technical and creative cuisine entrusted to chef Michele Giovannini, between sea and land, high-quality ingredients and combinations that are never banal. Beautiful room, attentive service and a growing wine list.
A few days before Easter, we had dinner at “Osare” a Roman restaurant recently recently opened.
In Rome, aided by the huge flow of tourism, including quality tourism, the restaurant industry is experiencing a particularly lively phase, made up of relaunches, stylistic updates, swirling rounds of kitchen and dining staff and, of course, new openings (of which we give you an account in the relevant column). And it is precisely one of these that I want to tell you about.
A new gastronomic address in Rome
Dare was born from the initiative of two rather young partners, Davide Nasso and Omar Staniscia, both of whom also have international experience behind them. They eyeballed a place that had been closed for a couple of years and decided to try the Roman adventure. To lead the kitchen they called in Michele Giovannini, 47-year-old chef of professional strength.
The cuisine of Michele Giovannini
The chef’s ideas are very clear: raw materials of the highest quality, both land and sea, and a cuisine capable of making coexist different elements in the same dish, with sometimes daring but always reasoned combinations, entertaining the customer also with targeted interpretative daring. When we went, the winter menu was still on the menu; today the spring menu is available.
A tasting menu full of surprises, between technique and creativity
Our dinner was developed through a tasting course, although it is possible to order a la carte. We started with an appetizer made up of three different courses: Mixed cold cuts from land and sea; Rabbit stuffed with langoustine, potato parmentier and chives; Sweetbreads, red shrimp, artichokes and black garlic.
This was followed by two homemade pasta dishes: beef and chicken agnolotti, with fish ristretto and parsley oil; lobster plin, parmesan, beet and dill.
For the main course, Guinea fowl stuffed with shrimp, black cabbage and fermented lemon, then closing with a refreshing dessert: Onion, honey, gianduia and parmesan ice cream.
Compelling dishes and precise identity
They are all very beautiful dishes, and endowed with a well-defined personality. The technical precision and some really brilliant insights are striking.
Only in one case did the result seem to us less centered, penalized by an excess of gustatory softness poorly compensated by freshness. A detail, however, that does not change the overall very positive assessment of the experience…,
A growing wine list
The wine list is already well laid out, with many Italian and French bubbles. Steadily increasing availability of still wines, with nice offerings from all over Italy and even foreign. We opted for a pathway by the glass with Marco Carpineti’s Brut Millesimato Kius 2022; Donnafugata’s Etna Bianco Sul Vulcano 2022; I Lori’s Bellone del Lazio Monsignore 2020; Argentiera’s Poggio ai Ginepri 2022, a Bordeaux blend from Bolgheri; and Ceretto’s Barolo Chinato.
Elegant environment and attentive service
Geographically, the restaurant is a stone’s throw from the famous Porta Pia, in an area dominated mainly by a lot of lower-middle-class tourist dining, with a few quality exceptions. The Osare project, on the other hand, by the owners’ specific wishes, is aimed at a more middle-class clientele willing to spend, but without pursuing the excesses of certain fine dining for its own sake.
The rooms are elegant, with high ceilings, well-calibrated furnishings and proper lighting. Service is friendly and well organized.
