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Supplì, Trapizzino and Maritozzo: Rome's Street Food Explained

Q: Is supplì another name for arancini?

No. They are related but different. A supplì is Roman: an oblong croquette of rice cooked in tomato sauce, with a piece of mozzarella inside that stretches when you bite it. Arancini are Sicilian, usually larger and round or conical, made with rice that is not cooked in tomato and filled with ragù, cheese or other fillings. In Rome you will find supplì almost everywhere; in much of the rest of Italy they are unknown.

Q: Where should I eat street food in Rome?

Trastevere and Testaccio are good neighbourhoods for it. Look for pizzerias and fried-food shops for supplì, dedicated counters for trapizzino, bakeries and pastry shops for maritozzi, and Testaccio's covered market for a range of stalls under one roof. Go where the food is made and sold all day, so what you buy is fresh.

ByIntercoper Curator Team•September 2026

Travel Analysts

📄Three street foods found almost only in Rome: supplì, trapizzino and maritozzo. What each one is, and the mix-ups locals keep correcting.

A foil tray of oval breaded fried croquettes on a Roman pizza counter, beside slices of pizza al taglio

💡Quick Answer

Rome's most local street foods are three. The supplì is a fried rice croquette with tomato and a mozzarella centre, and it is Roman, not a Sicilian arancino. The trapizzino is a pocket of pizza dough filled with a Roman stew, invented in Testaccio in 2008. The maritozzo is a soft sweet bun split open and filled with whipped cream. Locals in our research correct visitors about all three, most often about the maritozzo.

Explore the full guide & expert tips ➜

The supplì is Roman, and it is not an arancino

Of the three, the supplì is the one Romans are most protective of. A commenter from the city made the point with some surprise:

“As italian from Rome, i want to say to you a very strange thing about supplì Supplì is a roman dish, absolutely roman dish If you go in north of italy they don't know what is a supplì” — YouTube comment, June 2023

A supplì is rice cooked in tomato sauce, often with a little meat, shaped into an oblong croquette around a piece of mozzarella, breaded and fried. When you bite it and pull, the melted mozzarella stretches in a string, which is why it is sometimes called supplì al telefono, after an old telephone cord. It is a snack, a starter in pizzerias and one of the first things locals tell visitors to try:

“From an Italian girl living in Rome: supplì and carbonara is a must, and Trapizzino is relly good.” — YouTube comment, May 2026

The honest caveat is that a supplì is simple food, and simple food depends on freshness. A reviewer at a busy Trastevere trattoria was underwhelmed:

“Very average pizza and Suppli, not worth the 20 minute wait, and way better can be found elsewhere / anywhere!” — Google Maps, 3 stars, August 2026

The trade-off: a supplì from a shop that fries them all day costs little and fills a gap between meals. A tired one reheated at a crowded restaurant is a good reason not to judge the whole dish by it.

The trapizzino: new, and already a Roman classic

The trapizzino is the youngest of the three. It was created in Testaccio in 2008: a triangle of pizza dough baked, split into a pocket and filled with a traditional Roman dish, the kind usually eaten with a knife and fork. Chicken cacciatora, oxtail, meatballs in sauce and tripe are typical fillings.

It has spread from Testaccio to Trastevere and beyond, and commenters recommend it in the same breath as the old classics. One trip report put the options for a quick meal in order of preference:

“If you need something quick: pizza al taglio , supplì , or - if blessed by the gods - a Trapizzino (try it) .” — Reddit, November 2025

Not every filling is a stew. An Italian commenter singled out a lighter one:

“Il trapizzino con alici e stracciatella (cioè il ripieno cremoso della burrata) va provato almeno una volta nella vita!” — YouTube comment, July 2026

The trapizzino with anchovies and stracciatella, the creamy filling of burrata, is worth trying at least once in your life.

The trade-off: a trapizzino is a way to taste Roman home cooking without sitting down to a full meal. It is heavier than it looks, and one is often enough for lunch.

The maritozzo, and the bun that is not one

The maritozzo is a sweet, soft bun, split lengthways and packed with whipped cream, eaten in the morning or at any time you want something sweet. It is also the Roman food visitors most often get wrong in videos and posts, and Italian commenters correct it again and again. When a creator called a filled bun a maritozzo, one replied:

“The bun she was eating though is not a maritozzo, the maritozzo has a different bun, that one is more like a Sicilian brioche and it's usually filled with gelato.” — YouTube comment, May 2026

Others make the opposite correction, naming the "cream filled bun" visitors describe:

“Cream filled bun is called maritozzo con la panna!” — YouTube comment, May 2026

And one commenter placed it in its region:

“The "cream filled bun" (ie Maritozzo) is from Lazio/Marche/Abruzzo: I trust you when you say it was delicious.” — YouTube comment, November 2025

The distinction is easy to see once you know it: a maritozzo is an elongated bun with a thick band of whipped cream, while the round Sicilian brioche is usually filled with gelato. Some Trastevere bakers also make savoury maritozzi, with fillings such as amatriciana, which a local commenter recommended for anyone curious about a modern twist.

The trade-off: a maritozzo is rich, sweet and not a light breakfast. It is also something you will not find done the same way outside central Italy.

How to eat them

All three are made to be eaten without a table. Supplì are sold singly in pizzerias and fried-food shops, and are best eaten while hot. Trapizzini come from dedicated counters and are held in a paper wrapper. Maritozzi are sold by pastry shops and bars, often in the morning, and are best on the day they are filled.

A good way to try them is to spread them across a day rather than a single sitting: a maritozzo with a morning coffee, a supplì as a snack before dinner, and a trapizzino for a quick lunch. None costs much, and together they cover a side of Roman eating that sit-down restaurants do not.

The trade-off: eating on your feet means no table and no service. It also means tasting three Roman specialities for less than the price of a single main course.

The verdict

Try all three, and know what you are ordering. A supplì is Roman, oblong and filled with mozzarella; it is not an arancino. A trapizzino is a pizza pocket filled with a Roman stew. A maritozzo is a cream-filled sweet bun, not a gelato-filled brioche. Buy them fresh, from places that make them all day, and eat them where you stand.

Common questions

❓ Is supplì another name for arancini?

No. They are related but different. A supplì is Roman: an oblong croquette of rice cooked in tomato sauce, with a piece of mozzarella inside that stretches when you bite it. Arancini are Sicilian, usually larger and round or conical, made with rice that is not cooked in tomato and filled with ragù, cheese or other fillings. In Rome you will find supplì almost everywhere; in much of the rest of Italy they are unknown.

❓ Where should I eat street food in Rome?

Trastevere and Testaccio are good neighbourhoods for it. Look for pizzerias and fried-food shops for supplì, dedicated counters for trapizzino, bakeries and pastry shops for maritozzi, and Testaccio's covered market for a range of stalls under one roof. Go where the food is made and sold all day, so what you buy is fresh.

Author and Method

Research and analysis by the Intercoper Curator Team for TrastevereFoodTour. Reviewed by Mario Dalo, founder of Intercoper.

This article draws on the TrastevereFoodTour research corpus: 26,181 items collected between April 2010 and September 2026 from Google Maps, TripAdvisor, GetYourGuide, Trustpilot, Reddit, Quora and YouTube, of which 14,053 were processed for topic, pain points, claims and the questions travellers raise. For this piece we worked from the items mentioning supplì, trapizzino and maritozzo, most of them YouTube comments and Reddit posts.

How each food is made, and the distinction between supplì and arancini, are general knowledge about Italian food rather than findings measured from the corpus. The year and neighbourhood of the trapizzino's creation appear in a 2026 answer in the corpus and match its widely reported origin. Descriptions of commenters as Roman or Italian come from the comments themselves. One quotation is in Italian and is translated in the text. Specific shops named by commenters are not repeated, because the corpus cannot confirm whether they are open today.

Quotations are reproduced exactly as written, including the writer's own spelling and punctuation, and each was checked word for word against the stored item.

Curated by the Intercoper Curator Team. Reviewed. Compared. Selected.

Shops, recipes and prices change. Confirm before you go.

About the Author

Intercoper Curator Team

Travel Analysts

Our team analyzes what travelers publicly reported about each tour — thousands of reviews, forum threads and questions — and verifies what can be verified against operators and official sources. We publish what the evidence supports, including the parts that argue against a booking.

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