The Jewish Ghetto in Rome (2026): What to See, Eat and Know (2026)

What to see

The Great Synagogue (Tempio Maggiore) is the building you see from everywhere along the river: a temple-like block with a square dome clad in aluminium, built on land cleared when most of the old ghetto was demolished, and opened in 1904. Below it, the Jewish Museum of Rome tells the story of a community that has lived in the city for more than two thousand years, with ritual silver, textiles and documents from the ghetto years. A ticket gets you both: the museum with an audioguide, then a guided visit of the synagogue.

Price: €12; €6 for students up to 25; free under 10; €1 extra if you book online. Open: from 1 November to 14 January, Sunday to Thursday 10am to 4pm (last entry 3:15pm) and Friday 9am to 2pm; longer hours from February, and to 6pm in summer. Allow: an hour and a half. The catch: it's closed every Saturday and on Jewish holidays, and Friday is a short day, so plan round them. The Spanish Synagogue, in the same building, is seen only on a private tour booked at least 5 days ahead.

The Portico of Octavia (Portico d'Ottavia), at the eastern end of the Ghetto's main street, is a fragment of a huge colonnaded square that Augustus rebuilt between 27 and 23 BC and dedicated to his sister Octavia. Most of what stands is from Septimius Severus's rebuilding in AD 203, after a fire. In the Middle Ages the church of Sant'Angelo in Pescheria was built into it, and the colonnade became Rome's main fish market (pescheria) until the end of the 1800s.

The little square in front is Largo 16 Ottobre 1943, named for the day German forces rounded up more than a thousand of Rome's Jews in these streets and deported them to Auschwitz; only 16 came back. Look down as you walk: small brass plaques (Stolpersteine) in the pavement outside the houses carry the names of people taken. At the other end of the street, at numbers 1 and 2, the House of Lorenzo Manilio has a long Latin inscription in Roman capitals across its front and ancient carvings set into the wall. Price: free. The catch: the walkway through the ruins is narrow and busy at lunchtime.

The Theatre of Marcellus, a minute east, looks like a small Colosseum, and it's older: Julius Caesar started it and Augustus finished it, dedicating it in 13 or 11 BC to his nephew and heir Marcellus, who had died young. In the Middle Ages it became a fortress, and in the 16th century Baldassarre Peruzzi built a palace for the Savelli family on top of the arches, later owned by the Orsini. Flats are still lived in up there.

Price: free. Open: the area around it daily, 9am to 6pm in winter and 9am to 7pm in summer; you see the building from outside only. Allow: 20 minutes. The catch: there's nothing to go inside, so it's a walk-past, best in the late afternoon light. The three tall columns beside it belong to the Temple of Apollo Sosianus.

The Turtle Fountain (Fontana delle Tartarughe) on Piazza Mattei, on the Ghetto's north side, is one of the prettiest small fountains in Rome: four bronze youths, each with a foot on a dolphin, pushing turtles up into the top basin. Giacomo della Porta designed it and Taddeo Landini sculpted the figures between 1581 and 1588; the turtles were added in a 1658-59 restoration and are traditionally attributed to Bernini.

Price: free. Allow: 10 minutes, or longer with a coffee on the square. The catch: it's small, so don't make a special trip; it's a two-minute detour from Via del Portico d'Ottavia.

Largo di Torre Argentina, the busy square on the Ghetto's northern edge where the trams stop, has a sunken site in the middle with the remains of four Republican-era temples, so old that archaeologists still call them A, B, C and D. Beside them was the hall of the Curia of Pompey, where Julius Caesar was killed. Since June 2023 you can walk down among the temples on a raised walkway.

Price: €7, €4 reduced, plus €1 to book. Open: Tuesday to Sunday, 9:30am to 4pm in winter (last entry 3:45pm), to 7pm in summer; closed Monday. Entry is timed every 20 minutes, so buying online (€1 fee) secures a slot. Allow: 45 minutes. The catch: you can see almost all of it free by leaning over the railings; pay if you want to walk down among them.

Tiber Island (Isola Tiberina), across the river from the Synagogue, is Rome's only island in the Tiber, about 300 metres long, with a hospital (Fatebenefratelli, open since 1584) and the church of San Bartolomeo built over a Roman temple. You reach it from the Ghetto over Ponte Fabricio, built in 62 BC and still in use, one of the oldest bridges in Rome. Ponte Cestio, on the far side, takes you into Trastevere.

Price: free. Allow: 20 minutes. The catch: there's little to do but walk across, which is the point: it's the prettiest walk from the Ghetto into Trastevere.

Where to eat

Boccione, at the far end of Via del Portico d'Ottavia, is the Ghetto's famous old bakery: a narrow shop with no seating, selling Roman-Jewish cakes and biscuits straight from the oven. The thing to buy is the torta di ricotta e visciole, a double layer of shortcrust round ricotta and sour cherry jam. The dark, chewy pizza ebraica, packed with dried fruit and nuts, is the other classic.

Spend: the bakery doesn't publish prices. Open: no website; the MICHELIN Guide lists it as closed on Saturday and shutting mid-afternoon on Friday. The catch: things sell out, especially on Sunday, so go in the morning and expect a queue.

Ba'Ghetto, on Via del Portico d'Ottavia, is the pick if you want to eat strictly kosher: a certified kosher meat restaurant, so there's no dairy on the menu. It cooks the Roman-Jewish classics alongside Middle Eastern dishes such as falafel, hummus and couscous.

Order: the carciofo alla giudia, the whole fried artichoke (€6), or the Gran fritto Ba'Ghetto of salt cod, courgette flower, artichoke and battered vegetables (€20), then bucatini all'amatriciana made with smoked goose breast instead of pork (€16). The Antico Ghetto tasting menu is €50. Spend: about €24 for an artichoke, a pasta and bread, before wine. Open: lunch and dinner Sunday to Thursday, lunch only on Friday, and Saturday dinner after the Sabbath ends. The catch: bread is €1.50, printed on the menu.

Giggetto al Portico d'Ottavia has been here since 1923, right beside the Roman columns of the Portico, which is half the reason to come. It's a classic Roman trattoria rather than a kosher one, and it calls its fried artichoke 'the real carciofo alla giudia'.

Open: Tuesday to Sunday, 12:30pm to 3pm and 7:30pm to 11pm. Spend: it doesn't publish prices online. Book: on its site or on +39 06 6861105. The catch: its Google rating (3.9 from about 4,600 reviews) is the lowest of the Ghetto names here, so come for the setting and the artichoke. For the Ghetto's other big names, the best restaurants in Rome has Piperno, on Via Monte de' Cenci since 1860 (carciofo alla giudia €11), and Nonna Betta, on the main street, which calls itself Rome's first kosher-style restaurant (artichoke €6, carbonara alla giudia €14).