So you’ve found a great little restaurant in Italy. It’s tucked away on a side street, looks as if it’s filled with local people – and the smells coming from it are delicious. Trouble is, the menu is only in Italian (it might also be handwritten) – and you haven’t a clue what to order.
It’s always tricky if you don’t speak the language and feel nervous in case you order something you hate. It can often send you to the inferior, more touristy, restaurant on the main square which has a menu in English – and probably several other languages too.
So here are some words and phrases to help you decode those Italian menus.
Terms Describing How Food is Cooked - You’ll see these terms on Italian menus to describe the way in which the food has been prepared. Handy to know if you like your steak well cooked, not rare.
- al forno – baked (you’ll often see lasagne al forno, which just means it has been baked in the oven)
- arrosto/a - roasted
- bollito/a – boiled
- stufato/a – braised (usually a stew)
- fritto/a - fried (fritto misto appears on many Italian menus. It’s basically a mixed fry – with all sorts of mixed fish and shellfish)
- alla griglia (or sometimes ‘ai ferri’) – grilled
- saltata/o – sauteed
- piccante – spicy (used to describe a spicy sauce, for instance)
- ripiena/o – stuffed
- impanata/o – in breadcrumbs
- cruda/o – raw
- al sangue – rare (basically ‘bloody’)
- ben cotta/o – well done
General Menu Terms For Meat and Fish - Of course you don’t just want to know how it’s cooked – you want to know what it is. The following words refer to different types of meat and fish that you’ll find on an Italian menu.
- pesce – fish (pronounce it ‘peshay’ – otherwise they’ll think you’re asking for peaches which are pesche’– ‘peskay’ (you want peaches on your pizza madam???)
- frutti di mare – seafood
- carne – meat
- cacciagione – game (Italians eat a lot of game, including lepre ‘hare’ which is often cooked with a rich sauce of pine kernels, sultanas and chocolate.)
- pollame – poultry
Terms Describing Types of Meat, Game and Poultry -Here are some of the varieties of meat commonly found on Italian menus. You might be surprised at just how many different meats - and cuts of meat - are used.
- manzo – beef
- agnello – lamb
- montone – mutton
- maiale – pork (you might also see zampone which is a pig’s trotter, stuffed with spicy pork)
- vitello – veal (you’ll also see osso buco which is braised veal knuckle in a sauce, and saltimbocca which is a veal escalope)
- cervello – brains (yes, that’s right – brains, you might also see lingua, which is tongue)
- cervo – deer
- rognoni- kidneys
- cinghiale – wild boar (you’ll see this a lot in Tuscany)
- piccione – pigeon
- capretto – kid
- coniglio – rabbit
- pollo – chicken (you might also see anitra-duck)
Terms Describing Types of Fish -These are just a few of the types of fish you’ll find on an Italian menu
- acciughe – anchovies
- aragosta – lobster
- baccala – dried salt cod (to see a recipe for salt cod click here)
- anguilla – eel (this is sometimes cooked in a sauce with tuna fish and lemon)
- aringa – herring
- merluzzo – cod (you might also see stoccafisso, which is dried cod which is cooked with olives and tomatoes)
- ostriche – oysters (not ostrich)
- ricci – sea urchins
- rombo – turbot
- seppia – cuttlefish
- sgombri – mackerel
You might sometimes see an Italian menu offering fish cooked al cartoccio – this is a sort of parcel of paper in which the fish is cooked with onions, herbs and parsley
