At 170 Grammi in Surry Hills, Pecorino Romano appears on almost every dish that comes out of the kitchen — not as a garnish, but as structural architecture. It seasons the Cacio e Pepe pizza. It finishes the Amatriciana. It’s in the Carbonara, the Gricia, and the supplì. Take it out and the dish doesn’t just taste different — it becomes something else entirely.
Pecorino Romano is one of those ingredients that gets mentioned constantly but rarely explained. Here’s what it actually is, why it behaves so differently from other hard cheeses, and why Roman cooks have been treating it as irreplaceable for centuries.
What Is Pecorino Romano?
Pecorino Romano is an aged Italian cheese made from the full-fat milk of sheep — pecora is the Italian word for sheep, which is where the name comes from. It’s hard, dry, and heavily salt-cured, with a sharp, pungent flavour and an intensity that most other aged cheeses don’t approach. Of all the Pecorino varieties produced across Italy, Romano is the saltiest, the most assertive, and the one most directly associated with Rome’s cooking tradition.
The full name — Pecorino Romano DOP — reflects its protected status. Like San Marzano tomatoes and Prosciutto San Daniele, Pecorino Romano carries a Denominazione di Origine Protetta designation, which defines not just what it is but where it must be produced: specifically, in Lazio, Sardinia, and the province of Grosseto in Tuscany. Despite the Roman name, most Pecorino Romano today is made in Sardinia — the island’s pastoral landscape and large sheep population make it the natural production centre for a cheese that requires enormous quantities of sheep’s milk.
How Pecorino Romano Is Made
Pecorino Romano is a cooked-curd cheese, which means the milk is heated during production to help form the curd and develop the texture. The wheels are then dry-salted — rubbed repeatedly with coarse salt over several weeks — which draws out moisture, firms the texture, and gives the cheese its characteristic intensity. The minimum aging period under DOP rules is five months for table use and eight months for grating, though many wheels are aged considerably longer.
The high salt content isn’t incidental. Pecorino Romano has a long history as a ration and preservation cheese — Roman legions carried it as a calorie-dense, shelf-stable protein source that held up without refrigeration across long campaigns. The salt that made it last also defined its flavour, and Roman cooking built itself around that flavour rather than trying to soften it.
The result is a cheese that is much saltier than Parmesan, much drier than Pecorino Toscano or Sardo, and considerably sharper than most aged cheeses a modern cook would reach for. These aren’t flaws. They’re what make it work in the specific applications where Roman cooking uses it.
Pecorino Romano vs Parmesan — What’s the Difference?
Parmesan — Parmigiano Reggiano DOP — and Pecorino Romano are both hard, aged, grating cheeses with DOP status. That’s where the similarities end.
Parmigiano Reggiano is made from cow’s milk, aged for a minimum of twelve months (and often much longer), and has a flavour profile that’s nutty, sweet, and complex without being sharp. Its salt level is moderate. It melts smoothly and evenly, which makes it versatile across a wide range of dishes. It’s also considerably milder — approachable, easy to like, easy to overuse.
Pecorino Romano is sharper, saltier, and more direct. Its sheep’s milk base gives it a flavour note that’s slightly gamey and more pungent — what Italian cooks describe as piccante. It doesn’t melt in the same way Parmesan does; under heat, it tends to become grainy before it becomes smooth, which is exactly why Cacio e Pepe requires such precise technique to work.
The two cheeses are not interchangeable in Roman cooking, regardless of how often they’re treated as such. Swapping Parmesan into a Cacio e Pepe produces a milder, sweeter dish that emulsifies more easily but tastes fundamentally different. Swapping it into an Amatriciana removes the sharp counterpoint to the guanciale’s fat. The dish still works in a technical sense — but it stops being the dish.
Why Pecorino Romano Is Central to Roman Cooking
Roman cooking is built on a small number of ingredients that each carry significant flavour load — which is precisely why Pecorino Romano became so central to it. In a tradition where dishes are defined by restraint and where two or three components have to do the work of ten, you need every ingredient to be decisive.
Pecorino Romano is decisive. Its salt level means it seasons as it melts. Its sharpness adds acidity without adding liquid. Its fat content — higher than Parmesan due to the richer fat profile of sheep’s milk — adds body to a sauce without requiring cream or butter. In the context of cucina romana’s philosophy of doing more with less, a cheese that seasons, enriches, and flavours simultaneously is not a convenience. It’s a structural choice.
The four classic Roman pastas — Cacio e Pepe, Gricia, Carbonara, Amatriciana — all use Pecorino Romano as their primary cheese. In Cacio e Pepe, it’s the only flavouring agent other than pepper. In the others, it works alongside guanciale and, in Carbonara’s case, egg yolk. Understanding why Cacio e Pepe is technically demanding is largely a lesson in understanding how Pecorino Romano behaves under heat — and how to work with that behaviour rather than against it.
Pecorino Romano at 170 Grammi
Pecorino Romano DOP appears across the 170 Grammi menu in every application that Roman cooking has historically used it for. On the pizza side, the Cacio e Pepe pizza uses it as the sole flavouring alongside black pepper — white base, Pecorino Romano, nothing else. The Amatriciana pizza uses it to finish the San Marzano and guanciale sauce, adding the sharpness that stops the dish from reading as simply rich. The A’ Carbonara pizza brings in egg yolk alongside Pecorino Romano and guanciale, mirroring the classic pasta preparation in a different format.
On the pasta side, it finishes the Rigatoni Amatriciana and appears in whichever of the four canonical Roman preparations are on the menu at a given time. The supplì — particularly the Supplì Amatriciana — extend the same Pecorino Romano-forward flavour logic into the antipasti course.
The DOP certification that applies to Pecorino Romano is what ensures the cheese arriving at the table is the correct one — produced to the correct specification, in the correct region, from the correct milk. Substitutes exist. The dish is what suffers.
The full range of dishes using Pecorino Romano is across the 170 Grammi dine-in menu — and ordering the Cacio e Pepe pizza is the clearest way to understand what the cheese alone is capable of.
👉 Book a table at 170 Grammi and try the Cacio e Pepe pizza — two ingredients, no shortcuts, the most direct expression of Pecorino Romano on the menu.
Frequently Asked Questions
Pecorino Romano is an aged Italian cheese made from sheep’s milk, produced under DOP (Protected Designation of Origin) rules in Lazio, Sardinia, and the province of Grosseto. It is hard, dry, and heavily salt-cured, with a sharp, pungent flavour that makes it central to Roman cooking. The name comes from the Italian word for sheep, pecora.
Pecorino Romano is made from sheep’s milk and is considerably saltier, sharper, and more pungent than Parmesan (Parmigiano Reggiano), which is made from cow’s milk and has a milder, nuttier flavour. In Roman cooking, the two are not interchangeable — Pecorino Romano’s high salt content and assertive character are structural to dishes like Cacio e Pepe and Amatriciana. Substituting Parmesan changes the dish fundamentally.
No — Pecorino is a broad category of Italian sheep’s milk cheeses made across many regions. Pecorino Romano is one specific variety, defined by its DOP production area (Lazio, Sardinia, and Grosseto), its extended aging period, and its particularly high salt content. Other Pecorino varieties — Toscano, Sardo, Siciliano — are milder and behave differently in cooking.
Pecorino Romano is dry-salted repeatedly during production — a process that draws out moisture, firms the texture, and concentrates the salt deep into the cheese. Historically, the high salt content made it an effective preservation and ration cheese, carried by Roman legions as a shelf-stable protein source. That flavour profile became the foundation of Roman cooking rather than something to be softened or corrected.
Technically yes, but the result is a noticeably different dish. Parmesan is milder and less salty, so it neither seasons nor sharpens as aggressively as Pecorino Romano. In a Cacio e Pepe, the substitution produces a dish that’s gentler and sweeter but lacks the distinct character that defines the Roman version. For recipes built around Pecorino Romano’s specific flavour profile, there is no true substitute.
Pecorino Romano DOP appears across the menu in multiple preparations: the Cacio e Pepe pizza (Pecorino Romano and black pepper, nothing else), the Amatriciana pizza and Rigatoni Amatriciana, the A’ Carbonara pizza, and the Supplì Amatriciana. It is the primary cheese in every dish that draws on the classic Roman pasta and pizza tradition.
