It has closed (but the promise is to reopen elsewhere) the Paolillo sisters’ historic Enoteca Ferrara, an eatery of excellent cuisine and stellar wines in Rome. The causes? The transformation of Trastevere, between movida and overtourism. Daniele Cernilli tells us about it.
Thirty-eight years ago, in Rome, and more precisely in Trastevere, on Via dell’Arco di San Calisto, two girls of Neapolitan origin, Lina and Maria (Meri) Paolillo, opened a tiny restaurant: Enoteca Ferrara. The name came from an establishment in New York with which Lina fell in love. Then she was a young and passionate sommelier and began to select wines that almost no one then knew about. Maria took to the stove, self-taught, and began a story that has just ended.
A few years later, in the late 1990s, they moved to Trilussa Square, on the corner of Via del Moro, also in Trastevere, taking over a much larger venue that for years was one of Rome’s most famous nightclubs, the Dorian Grey, which had recently closed. The menu became richer, with a real kitchen brigade. The wine list grew to become a real reference point for fans. Among other things, with a truly unique graphic version.
Now the story of that truly formidable experience is over. Lina and Maria will continue elsewhere, as they have already stated. I will miss that place where I spent so many evenings with friends, where Antonio Albanese filmed his famous sketch in which he played a snooty and comical sommelier, where I used to get lost reading about the wines from the cellar on that wonderful card.
Below we publish the greetings of Lina and Maria. We only have to wish them our heartfelt “best of luck” for the future.
“A very long history with millions and millions of satisfactions and recognitions, in short, a wonderful story that has seen us fatigued, disconsolate (Covid), struggling with a thousand little daily problems, but most of all grateful, grateful to life that allowed us to express ourselves as is in our nature, never betraying it by often making anti-commercial choices. Thanks to all those customers who through a compliment or gratification have done justice to the effort.
Grateful to the entire world of wine that through its protagonists have always involved us in often unique experiences and allowed us, with their very high quality, to offer a wine list esteemed by all.
A special thanks to all our suppliers who have become friends, the true Italian excellence that Chef Maria has always tried to enhance and respect by making them true accomplices in the dishes created.
With us have shared our philosophy so many collaborators without whom nothing would have been possible, therefore, special thanks go to all of them.
We have lived the Trastevere neighborhood through 38 years sharing its every mutation and now that we experience its umpteenth transformation we feel out of place and never wanting to adapt our proposal we have decided to make way for those who know how to do it and who are in tune humanly and commercially with the historic neighborhood that we have deeply loved but which we now do not recognize.
The future, despite our age, sees us full of enthusiasm and with the complicity of our historic staff we will know how to be there elsewhere.
Stay tuned.”
Lina and Maria Paolillo
Enoteca Ferrara
