Hands down, Italy has some of the best food in the world. Everywhere you look, the streets are full of cute little restaurants that don't even have names. The Italian culture revolves around food. In the middle of the day, from noon to about four, the entire city will shut down so that the Italians can go home and have a long lunch with their family. Here in the United States, going out to eat is a very quick and systematic procedure. You sit down, get your drinks, order your food, get your food and eat, then pay and leave. All this takes roughly a half hour to 45 minutes. In Italy, this isn't exactly how it goes. An ordinary meal in Italy, lunch or dinner, takes about 3 hours. This is because Italians believe that food is the center of family and it is what brings a family together. The usual Italian meal consists of 3 courses: Antipasti (an appetizer), a main dish, and a desert (Wikipedia). Although I have had a meal that was up to 7 courses, 3 is the usual number. It's also considered extremely rude for a waiter or waitress to bring the check before you ask for it. These tips are nice to know so you know what to expect for your first meal in Italy.
There are a lot of Italian dishes that are served at pretty much every restaurant. Some of the most popular pastas include Carbonara (my personal favorite) is a pasta dish that consists of eggs, bacon, and a parmesean cheese sauce. Arrabiata, which means "angry pasta", is a very spicy pasta dish that has a tomato sauce with chili peppers. Cacio e pepe is a pasta dish that is simply just olive oil and parmesean cheese (Wikipedia).
The pizza in Italy is very different from the States and it will take some getting used to. The crust is very thin and the toppings are sometimes strange. The most popular pizza in Italy is called pizza margharita, which is just a flavorful tomato sauce with cheese on top. The pizza romana includes tomato, mozzerella, anchovies, oragano, and oil and the pizza viennese includes tomato, mozzerella, german sausage, oragano, and oil (Wikipedia).
During my four months in Italy, I came across some really great restaurants. However, these are hard to get a location on because the restaurants don't have names so you'll have to do some exploring when you get there. Our favorite restaurant in Rome was Abbey Theatre, Via del Governo Vecchio 51 (Facebook), which is an Irish pub that serves American food. Needless to say, we pretty much lived in this restaurant.
Overall, the food in Italy is an experience. Once you figure out what you like, you'll never want to go back to American food.
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