Officina Pizza e Burger in Rome, Italy

Posted by Rowena Dumlao - Giardina 10/30/2017

Officina Pizza e Burger in Rome, Italy

Entering Officina, you won't miss the shiny blue Fiat 1500 vintage car used as a base for a big glass center table. It's a stunning original piece that brothers Alfredo and Mario Arcangeli put together as part of their refurbishment and reformatting of their old pub into a new restaurant and pizzeria. Look around and you will find vintage gas pumps, plate numbers, signs, a Vespa and a shiny red old model of Fiat 500 cut in half and used as a comfortable seat. It's a lovely casual place that represents the brothers' passion in transforming and repairing vintage objects where families and friends get together in a cozy place with good pizzas and burgers.

Mario and Alfredo widened the scope of their menu to a scrumptious selection of burgers and pizzas without losing sight of the most fundamental aspect of their kitchen which is quality. Their pizzas are overlooked by Marco Lungo, a noted gastronomy expert with specialty in pizza making. A good pizza should have high digestibility using the correct ingredients of top quality and proper leavening procedure. The dough that Marco created for Officina uses strictly selected ingredients of fine Italian grains and Biga Lungo, a kind of pre-fermentation used in Italian baking. Biga Lungo develops the aromatic components more, improves the workability of the dough and determines its longer preservability in terms of its fragrance even after some time after baking.

The pizzas created by Marco are projected to be accompanied with beer. The combinations are not categorized as traditional Roman or Neapolitan but more on the innovative side. The pizza names alone are quirky which are reminiscent of Officina's theme. You will find Martello (fior di latte, porcini mushrooms and truffles), Vite (fior di latte, Gorgonzola, guanciale, potatoes, onions and Parmigiano Reggiano), and Sfiammata which is a challenge to the spicy food lovers because it includes Carolina Reaper, the most powerful chili in the world.

Also in the menu are interesting entries like fiori di zucca con gamberi e basilico (squash blossom with shrimp and basil), baccala pastellato al carbone vegetale con maionese alla banana (fried cod fish coated with vegetable carbon batter and served with banana mayonnaise), tonarelli cacio e pepe con scampi e lime (with langoustine and lime) and beef fillet.

The route of selection paves way to fish and vegetable dishes too like the salmone scottato con crema di piselli freschi (scalded salmon with fresh pea cream), sformato di broccoli, porcini e provola (broccoli, porcini mushrooms and Provola cheese flan), and the Mustang Vegetarian Burger (potato rosti, caramelized onions, baby spinach and yogurt sauce). A couple of curiosities are the Donut Burger (fried sweet donut with hamburger, green tomatoes, double Cheddar cheese and caramelized onions) and the Waffle Burger (Belgian waffles with hamburger, bacon, avocado and yogurt sauce).