The Best Rooftop Restaurants in Rome

Creating edible art, chef Heinz Beck presides over the only three-Michelin-star restaurant in Rome: ninth-floor La Pergola on Monte Mario. Instead of pasta like mamma makes, you’ll sample deep-fried courgette flowers with caviar, washed down with a choice of over 70,000 bottles of wine – or water from the 12-page water menu. As you enter the lobby, take a moment to marvel at the collection of Venetian artistic masterpieces.

For more haute Italian cooking, head to the top of this Roman palazzo on the edge of the lovely Villa Borghese park​​. From the terrace of this garden-themed rooftop restaurant, you can peer across to the Renaissance dome of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican as you linger over creamy carbonara. Come morning, return to sip your espresso as the sun rises over the Eternal City.

A removable canopy facilitates fresh-air feasting at this romantic rooftop restaurant in Rome. You’ll be torn between guzzling your clam-and-artichoke pasta and gazing from the Piazza Venezia across to the Imperial Forums and as far as the Basilica of Maxentius and the Colosseum. Perhaps that’s why the Dalai Lama chose to stay here. Set on a tiny flower-filled terracotta terrace above the restaurant, the American Bar is the icing on the cake of this 18th-century hotel.

Housed in an atmospheric 17th-century palazzo, this sumptuous rooftop restaurant is blessed with sweeping views over the dome of the Pantheon to St Peter’s and Piazza Navona below. That’s not all the balustraded Terrazza Borromini has to offer the lucky guests who dine here; incorporating ingredients from around the country, dishes include classic Roman cacio e pepe (pecorino and pepper) spaghetti and grilled octopus with Amalfi lemon.

Freshly rolled tagliatelle, steamed lobster and crispy pork belly lure guests to the top of this 19th-century hotel on the boutique-lined Via Nazionale boulevard, where well-dressed Romans shop up a storm. When they’re done, they pitch up to Ambrosia for the sought-after views as they revive with a stiff, well-mixed negroni and velvety chocolate cake with a white chocolate heart.

As locations go, this spot is on the money. Sat atop the iconic Fendi Palazzo, just off the luxury Via dei Condotti retail strip, the two-floor Zuma shirks pasta and pizza for modern Japanese sharing plates and tasting menus. Nibble rock lobster-and-avocado maki and truffled wagyu tartare as you enjoy views across central Rome from the wooden, bay-tree topped terrace.

This ivy-clad hotel behind Piazza Navona is where Julia Roberts stayed while filming Eat, Pray, Love – but you don’t have to be a Hollywood star to spend time on the terrace overlooking some of the finest sights in the city, from St Peter’s to the Pantheon. Here, among the flowers and foliage, organic, vegetarian and vegan dishes are the order of the day, complementing the hotel’s green and eco ethos.

For a ringside view of the ancient Colosseum, shimmy over to the Hotel Capo d’Africa. Its leafy, candlelit terrace will soften the heart of even the most unromantic diners as they tuck into sea bream topped with prosciutto on a balmy summer’s night. If money is no object, book the studio suite for a private terrace where you can sip Frascati in sight of that alluring amphitheatre.