A Holiday Post by Debora Zecchini, Manager at Chianti Ristorante

As in many other places around the world, we wrap up our last minute Christmas shopping in the festively lit, cobble stone streets.  A favorite shopping spot in Rome is the Piazza Navona where you can find hundreds of stands selling Christmas figures and Babbo Natale (Santa Claus) ready to take photos with the children.  While the last minute shoppers finish their errands, the women are at home cooking for an army!  The Christmas Eve dinner begins with fried zucchini, fried cod, and fried salmon for appetizers, a pasta course of linguine with tuna, a anguille marinate (an Italian fish) for dinner served with mussels steamed in white wine served with a green salad and sautéed broccolini.  For dessert we have panettone and pandoro, Rome’s holiday favorites.  These sweet breads are served with spumante and torrone (a chocolate filled with hazelnuts), dried figs and dates.

After the three hour meal, the entire family (including the young kids) gets ready to the go the Messa di Mezzanotte (the midnight mass.)  I always went to St. Peter’s mass where millions of people from all over the world would watch the Pope recite the mass in more than 10 different languages.  The Christmas Eve midnight mass is one of the best experiences that I would recommend to anyone, Catholic and non-Catholic alike.

After the mass we all rush home to open presents!  This is the best part of the evening.  After trying to stay up for this moment the little children suddenly have the highest energy level of the night!  After the presents are opened and the children are in bed, the adults stay in the living room and play Tombola (one of the oldest gambling games) and continue drinking, Limoncello, Vin Santo and Sambuca!  The festivities end at 3:00am and we all finally go to bed before getting up and eating more the next day!

Buon Natale and Merry Christmas from all of us at DZ Restaurants!