There was a time when you strolled through Rome quite unmolested, across the beautiful piazzas, in the shadow of churches and palaces, past bars and trattorias. Strolling in the old walls, that was actually half the story.

Now young people hit you every few meters, often with the same scam: “Hello! Hello! Hi! Where are you from?” The Romans among the passers-by get so annoyed at being mistaken for tourists in their own city that they sometimes react really harshly.

The «buttadentro» is the counterpart to the more established bouncer, the «buttafuori», but is just as annoying as a role model.

The young gentlemen with the bow are called «buttadentro», literally reinschmeisser. The encyclopedia Treccani introduces the term as a new creation. The «buttadentro» is the counterpart to the more established bouncer, the «buttafuori», but as a role model it is just as annoying, maybe even more annoying. The Reinschmeisser are intended to attract customers with red and white checkered tablecloths for restaurants that are at most mediocre to very below average, who would otherwise not have thought of stopping in there. Bars also turn on “buttadentro” for the orange aperitif at the twilight hour and far beyond.

At Campo de’ Fiori, for example, the “buttadentro” are now on both sides of the square, in two rows, with menus in hand. The only way to escape them is to measure the campo right down the middle, sneaking around the statue of Giordano Bruno. The phenomenon has grown rapidly, including in Venice and Florence, and is now more prevalent than on Barcelona’s Ramblas, which first introduced the genre to Europe.

Out of 2000 bars in the historic center of Rome, 600 already have Reinschmeisser. Most of them come from Albania, Macedonia or Romania. They don’t get paid as well as waiters – except for the ones who throw in an insane amount of customers and work on commission. If you speak Italian, pass for Italian. At least for the tourists, and they have to be convinced. Romans rarely eat in tourist traps.

“You damage the image of the city”

But there is hope. Rome’s new city government believes that the “buttadentro” are an outgrowth of the decadence of mass tourism and the cultural corruption that inevitably goes with it. And now that the tourists are back, en masse, the decoys are back too. “They damage the image of the city,” says Monica Lucarelli, responsible for trade and commerce. They will be banned – that’s it! – if necessary by police order.

First, they try the gentle way: the city creates the brand “Ristorante tipico romanesco”, “Typical Roman restaurant”. The award is only given to those who have a minimum number of truly Roman dishes on their menu, who do not serve pre-cooked pasta from the microwave and, of course, who do not put a “buttadentro” in front of the restaurant.

Sometimes, however, the decoy sweetens the heart so charmingly that one could almost succumb to it. Recently, for example, in the quieter part of Trastevere, near the Piazza del Drago. “The water’s already boiling,” whispered the waiter in the white shirt and pointed to the trattoria with his outstretched arm.

Published: 05/13/2022, 16:00

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