Old School {Da Remo + Rome}

In my hometown of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, there is this pizza place called Big Ed's.

Some of my fondest childhood memories are of having dinner there and of Big Ed himself, in a flour-dusted white T-shirt sitting at the end of the bar. We kids passed the eternal wait for the pizza pressed up against the glass watching the dough and sauce get swirled by skilled teenagers and snacking on cold, crumbly pieces of pizza cheese offered to us. The place was loud, there was always a line and the pizza was blistering hot when it arrived at the table. Little has changed in the past four or so decades. It is now Ed's son at the bar, but the jukebox still takes quarters and the line on a Friday night, still snakes out the door toward the high school football field.

When I am back in Tennessee, pizza at Big Ed's is usually one of the first meals we have when we arrive and always one of the last. I have been known to travel across oceans with foiled wrapped pieces of pepperoni. 

Now I live in the place where pizza began. Pizza is a different thing here in Rome. Pepperoni are red peppers and there is no jukebox playing Hank and Dolly and Porter. What there is, however, is Da Remo. A place that feels very much like my Tennessee hometown spot. Loud and full of young servers in white t-shirts and plenty of tattoos, Da Remo in Testaccio is the Roman version of Big Ed's Pizza. This is traditional, Roman, old school pizza with cracker thin crusts and the best ordering system in town. 

On Friday nights, Da Remo even has a line that snakes out toward the piazza.

Pizzeria Da Remo
Piazza Santa Maria della Liberatrice 44
06 574 6270
Closed Sunday
Dinner only