Il Goccetto — Wine bar in Roma

One of the oldest and most celebrated wine bars in Rome, founded in 1983 by Anna and Sergio in an 18th-century building on the Via dei Banchi Vecchi, in the Regola district: a street that has sat on the edge of Rome's commercial and ecclesiastical life for centuries, close to Campo de' Fiori. The old "Vino e Olio" sign still hangs there, even though the neighbourhood around it has changed many times over the years. It has become a true Roman institution, visited by a strikingly diverse crowd, from Russian baronesses to museum directors, artists, writers, politicians and tourists, all at the same dark wooden counter. Small, intimate and somewhat dim, with idiosyncratic furniture (no two pieces alike), a Renaissance fresco on the ceiling and walls lined with 300-400 different wine bottles, one of the largest collections in the city. A chalkboard shows the changing list of wines by the glass (around 40, changing monthly), ranging from little-known natural wine from Sicily to sparkling wine from the Veneto.