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This savoury veal dish is so good they call it “jumps-in-the-mouth”. A veal escalope is layered with sage leaves and prosciutto then sautéed in white wine.

Named after Amatrice, the northern Lazio town high in the Abruzzi mountains where it originated. The sauce consists of tomatoes mixed with Italian bacon – guanciale (pork cheek) or pancetta (pork belly) – laced with chilli pepper and liberally dusted with grated Pecorino romano cheese. The classic pasta accompaniment are bucatini (thick, hollow spaghetti). The original amatriciana bianca version (before tomatoes, a New World food, entered Italian cuisine) adds parsley and butter.

Tender Italian artichokes, often laced with garlic and mint, are braised in a mixture of olive oil and water.

Roasted Roman spring lamb, so succulent the name claims you’ll “burn your fingers” in your haste to eat it. When abbacchio (lamb) is unavailable, once the spring slaughter is over, they switch to less tender agnello (young mutton).

The piping hot pasta is immediately mixed with a raw egg, grated Parmesan and black pepper so that the eggy mixture cooks on to the strands of spaghetti themselves. It is then tossed with pieces of pancetta (bacon). There’s a local legend that the recipe was born out of US army rations after World War II (powdered bacon and eggs mix), but no one seems to have proven or discarded the theory.

Artichokes, first flattened then fried. This typical Roman Jewish dish is often accompanied by fried courgette (zucchini) flowers stuffed with mozzarella cheese and anchovies.

It may sound revolting but it’s actually delicious: suckling calf intestines boiled with its mother’s milk still clotted inside. Usually the intestines are chopped, coated with a tomato sauce and served over pasta.

Oxtail braised in celery and tomato broth. Like pajata , this is a product of trying to make something out of the quinto quarto (the unusable “fifth fourth” of the day’s butchering), which was part of the take-home pay of 19th-century slaughterhouse workers. Checchino dal 1887, the restaurant that came up with this delicacy, is one of Rome’s finest (see Felice).

These tiny potato-and-flour dumplings, dense and chewy, originated in northern Italy, but Rome has since adopted them as her own – the city even has a traditional “gnocchi day” every Thursday, when they are added to most restaurant menus. Gnocchi are best served with a fresh tomato sauce, although they’re also good with a gorgonzola cheese sauce or simply with sage leaves and melted butter.

Sometimes the simplest dishes are among the best. Perfectly al dente (“with a bite”) spaghetti is tossed hot with cracked black pepper and grated Pecorino romano (a local sharp, aged sheep’s milk cheese rather similar to Parmesan).