200 Reviews of Rome: Beppe E i Suoi Formaggi

Beppe E i Suoi Formaggi



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Two Stars




So, as this review about Rome gets posted on the Internet I am off in Paris. And since that means a year has gone by since my month in Rome, and I am already off on another trip, I thought I should try and make some more headway on my minor epic: The 200 Reviews of Rome, which isn't exactly an epic, I just call it that so everyone on the Internet will be impressed, which I'm pretty sure is working so far. I also thought I'd review some place that would assuage some of my family's pre Paris trip feelings of sadness that we are not returning to Rome. And what better place to review to bolster our spirits than ol' Beppe Suoi Formaggi!

This place is a cheese shop with a cafe restaurant and it is really nice. It's pretty inside and comfortable. The cheeses all look very cozy behind their glass cases. We managed some apparently oddball time to go in the afternoon and were the only customers, but they were still nice to us. It's a pleasant place. When I went to the back to use their bathroom there was someone at a table doing all the restaurant's bills or something. Professional, homey, nicely located, charming, five stars!

Oh, wait, we should have some food before we go handing out stars.

We got ourselves a nice big cheese plate, with a bit of charcuterie on it, some water, and some wine.

What in all of that could possibly bring this pleasant five star eatery plummeting down to a mere two stars? Was the cheese riddled with maggots? The wine soured? Did the meats make us ill for four days?

No. Wow, no, nothing like that. Boy, I feel like I'm being all churlish now what with dropping it down three whole stars. It, uh, it just wasn't very good.

Wasn't very good? Wasn't very good! You dare to come onto the sacred and holy font of all judgement known as the Internet and toss off a mere "Wasn't very good"?

Yeah. I guess. Is that a problem?

Er, no. Go ahead.

Well, so I don't think they quite get cheese there in Rome, I mean, outside of the mozzarellas and maybe ricotta, the fresh cheeses, the cooking cheeses.  I saw the same cheeses on our plate at Beppe that I saw everywhere else in town; a weird greyish blue cheese that always felt like it had been improperly stored, then a bunch of mild sheep cheeses that were hard to tell apart. The charcuterie included a usual salami or two and something so truly horrifying I decided to eat a bite in order to see what it would be like to be the sort of person who does that. It was like pieces of innards and brains in aspic. I had a bite. I didn't like it, but I may have been too subsumed in horror to even taste it.

Anyway, maybe one needs proper cold weather to make proper cheese. Northern Italy maybe? Mountains? Winter?

So, should you go to Beppe E i Suoi Formaggi?

Yeah, sure, it looks great, and the Internet is totally unreliable.