Why Anthony Bourdain Couldn’t Stop Talking About Rome’s Cacio e Pepe

A Roman pasta that became a personal benchmark

If you’re looking for a reliable compass for what to eat—whether you’re planning a trip or just trying to cook something outside your usual rotation—Anthony Bourdain remains one of the most influential guides of the modern era. Across multiple travel and food shows, the late chef built a reputation for curiosity and candor, praising dishes that moved him and dismissing others that didn’t.

That blunt honesty is part of why his endorsements still carry weight. Bourdain didn’t treat every local specialty as automatically great. He could be ruthless about foods he disliked, once describing fermented shark in Iceland as “the single worst thing I’ve ever put in my mouth.” At the same time, when something truly impressed him, he didn’t hedge. He highlighted countless meals worth seeking out, and in a few cases, he went further—turning a dish into a must-do experience.

One example was a favorite sandwich he ate at Bar do Mané in Brazil, which left such an impression that he later published his own rendition of the recipe in a cookbook. The message was simple: if you can’t get there, you can still try to understand the appeal by cooking it yourself.

But among the many foods he encountered, one humble Roman pasta rose to a particularly high status in his personal canon: cacio e pepe.

The Rome advice that surprised people: skip sightseeing, eat this instead

In a 2011 episode of The Layover, Bourdain offered a piece of travel advice that has been repeated ever since. If you only have a few hours in Rome, he suggested, you should skip the Vatican and go eat a specific meal: cacio e pepe.

It’s a striking recommendation because it flips the usual priorities. Many first-time visitors are tempted to sprint from landmark to landmark, trying to squeeze in as much history and art as possible. Bourdain’s framing implied something else: that a bowl of pasta, done right, can be as essential to understanding Rome as a museum or a basilica.

And he wasn’t talking about a complicated, showy dish. Cacio e pepe is famously simple—pasta, cheese, pepper—yet it has a way of feeling complete when executed with care.

The first taste on camera—and the reaction that followed

The moment Bourdain first tried a true Roman cacio e pepe was captured on camera during his first visit to Rome. He was there filming season 6, episode 20 of No Reservations, and he ate the city’s signature pasta at a restaurant he didn’t name in the episode.

His response was immediate and visceral. After tasting it, he joked, “I'm sure this is illegal somewhere,” and later went even further, calling cacio e pepe the “greatest thing in the history of the world.”

It’s an enormous claim, the kind that could sound exaggerated if it weren’t delivered by someone known for being hard to impress. Yet the intensity of his reaction helped cement the dish’s reputation with viewers: here was a plate of pasta so satisfying that it stopped a seasoned traveler mid-sentence.

The restaurant fans connected to that scene

Although Bourdain didn’t share the restaurant’s name in the No Reservations episode, fans later confirmed where he ate: Roma Sparita, a family-owned restaurant in Rome’s Trastevere neighborhood.

For travelers hoping to follow that trail, the good news is straightforward. Roma Sparita is still open today, and cacio e pepe remains on the menu. That continuity matters—because part of the appeal of Bourdain’s favorite meals is the sense that they’re tied to real places that continue to serve real people, not just TV memories.

What makes Roma Sparita’s version stand out

Roma Sparita sticks to a classic approach, keeping the focus where it belongs: pasta, black pepper, and Pecorino Romano. The dish is unassuming by design, and the restaurant doesn’t complicate it with extra ingredients.

Still, there is one detail that makes the presentation especially memorable. The pasta arrives in a crispy bowl crafted from the same signature cheese—Pecorino Romano—so the dish is literally cradled by its key flavor. It’s a small flourish that doesn’t change the core identity of cacio e pepe, but it does underscore what the dish is about: cheese, pepper, and technique.

Why cacio e pepe is simple—but not simplistic

Cacio e pepe is often described as a minimalist pasta, and that’s accurate. But minimal ingredients don’t automatically make a recipe easy. With so little to hide behind, every choice matters: the quality of the cheese, the freshness of the pepper, the texture of the noodles, and the way the sauce comes together.

That’s also why the dish travels so well from restaurant to home kitchen. You don’t need a long shopping list, and you don’t need heavy additions to create richness. In fact, one of the defining points of a traditional approach is what it avoids.

No heavy cream required

Unlike many Americanized pasta dishes, cacio e pepe doesn’t rely on heavy cream to form a rich sauce. The creaminess comes from an emulsion: cheese combined with starchy pasta water, tossed so it becomes glossy and cohesive rather than clumpy.

This distinction is important for anyone trying to understand why the dish can feel so luxurious despite its simplicity. The richness is built from the ingredients already present—just handled with attention.

How to get closer to a restaurant-quality bowl at home

Eating cacio e pepe in Rome is difficult to replace, especially if you’re chasing the memory of a particular restaurant. Still, the dish is absolutely within reach at home, and the path to a better result is less about adding ingredients and more about making smart choices with the ones you already have.

Here are the key considerations that matter most when you’re cooking it yourself.

1) Choose the right cheese: Pecorino Romano

The cheese is not interchangeable. For cacio e pepe, Pecorino Romano is the standard to aim for. It’s a salty sheep’s milk cheese, and compared with Parmigiano Reggiano it tends to be a little creamier and brighter in flavor.

That flavor profile is central to the dish’s identity. If you want something that tastes like the Roman classic Bourdain raved about, Pecorino Romano is the ingredient that gets you closest.

2) Use freshly ground black pepper

Pepper is not just a garnish here—it’s half the name of the dish. Freshly ground black pepper has a stronger aroma and a more potent flavor than pre-ground pepper, which can taste dull and dusty by comparison.

Because cacio e pepe is so spare, the difference is noticeable. Fresh pepper helps the dish smell alive and taste focused, rather than flat.

3) Cook the pasta al dente—and treat noodles as the star

Cacio e pepe is a pasta dish where the noodles really are the main event. That means texture matters. Cooking the pasta only until al dente helps preserve a pleasant bite and avoids the gummy, mushy quality that can ruin the experience.

When the sauce is essentially cheese and water, the pasta’s structure becomes part of the dish’s satisfaction. A good chew gives the sauce something to cling to and keeps the bowl from feeling heavy.

4) Build a glossy sauce with starchy water

One of the most common frustrations with cacio e pepe is ending up with a clumpy, stringy mess instead of a smooth sauce. The technique is the difference.

Many chefs recommend cooking pasta in slightly less water than usual. The reason is practical: less water means the cooking liquid becomes more concentrated with starch, and that starch helps the sauce emulsify later. In other words, it’s easier to create that glossy coating when your pasta water has more body.

5) Let the pasta water cool slightly before mixing with cheese

Another widely suggested trick is to let the pasta water cool a bit before tossing it with the cheese. This helps prevent the Pecorino Romano from instantly melting into strings. Instead of seizing and clumping, the cheese has a better chance of blending into a creamy, cohesive sauce.

This small pause can be the difference between a bowl that looks broken and one that looks silky.

A practical checklist for home cooks

Because the ingredient list is short, it helps to think in terms of a checklist rather than a long recipe. If you want to improve your odds of getting a smooth, Roman-style result, focus on these fundamentals:

• Use Pecorino Romano for the cheese component.
• Grind black pepper fresh for stronger aroma and flavor.
• Cook pasta only until al dente to keep the texture lively.
• Cook pasta in slightly less water to concentrate starch.
• Let pasta water cool slightly before combining with cheese to avoid clumps.

Why this dish keeps earning repeat attention

Bourdain’s praise is part of why so many people seek out cacio e pepe, but the dish endures for a more basic reason: it delivers a lot with very little. There’s a kind of confidence in a recipe that doesn’t need extra ingredients to feel complete.

At Roma Sparita, that confidence shows up in a classic approach and a distinctive cheese bowl that emphasizes the core flavor. At home, it shows up when you resist shortcuts—like heavy cream—and instead rely on Pecorino Romano, fresh pepper, and starchy water to do the work.

For anyone who loves to travel through food, cacio e pepe offers two parallel experiences. You can chase the restaurant version in Rome, in the neighborhood where fans say Bourdain had his life-changing bite. Or you can learn the technique in your own kitchen and understand, firsthand, why a dish with such a modest ingredient list could inspire someone to call it the greatest thing in the world.

Learning the technique—and then letting it become second nature

Cacio e pepe rewards repetition. Once you’ve tried a few recipes and practiced the method, the process becomes intuitive: managing heat, judging the right moment to add water, and tossing until the sauce turns glossy.

That’s the final appeal of Bourdain’s favorite Roman pasta. It isn’t just a one-time restaurant story. It’s a dish you can revisit, refine, and eventually make without guidance—simple enough to attempt on a weeknight, yet exacting enough to keep teaching you something each time.