Eventually here it is! This is THE article where you will find out all you must know about Genoese pesto: the right ingredients, the right tools, the original recipe and all the secret tips & tricks of Genoese cooks on how to make pesto. After having read this ultimate guide to pesto sauce, you will be ready to prepare it as local and obtain the very flavour of a real Genoese pesto!

1. THE RIGHT INGREDIENTS

BASIL –Basil first of all. It must be very fresh, preferably with small leaves which gives a gentler taste and not that minty. Smaller leaves are better  as you can crush them easily in the mortar. In Genoa we traditionally use basilico di Pra type. The best one is that originally grown in Pra, a small area just outside Genoa, as well as that grown along the slopes clinging on the sea along the coast between Genoa and Savona, such as  in Celle Ligure at Azienda Agricola Paolo Calcagno. Leaves should be washed only if necessary (organic basil will be the best option), as washing them removes some of the essential oils that give pesto its aromatic flavour. If you wash them remember to dry them very well with the salad spinner before making your pesto sauce (especially if you do it in the mortar: water in fact makes the operation of crunching quite difficult and the pesto too watery). If you can’t  make pesto just after shopping,  the best way to preserve the freshness of the basil even for a couple of days is the following: clean it with water, dry it with the salad spinner and put it in a metal pan, close with a lid and keep it in the warmer part of the fridge.

Miss the right basil at home? Why don’t you try to grow “sweet basil” (this is the right cultivar) at home? It is extremely easy! Have a look at the post “How to grow basil: the ultimate guide”.“ published on the Kitchn.

GARLIC –If you use “new garlic” (on the market – in Italy – generally from July to December) you can indulge without risking a too powerful pesto as it is less pungent. If you use “old garlic” (you find it on the market from January to May) it is better to use less, as it is more pungent, and to remove the inner green bit which is very strong and can cause indigestion. In any case garlic must be adjusted while making pesto in order to obtain a balanced flavour. Finally, quality of the garlic is quite important in the recipe because it doesn’t really get cooked. In the Italian Riviera original pesto recipe the right garlic is the one grown in Valle Arroscia (a valley in the backcountry of Albenga, Italian Riviera west coast) and named Aglio di Vessalico. It has an intense spicy and sweet flavour and special organoleptic qualities that makes it very digestible.

PINE NUTS – All Italian Riviera sauces made in the mortar bears some nuts inside, always. This is a heritage from the Arabian people, with whom Genoese did business for many centuries. In some part of the Italian Riviera pesto is made also with walnuts. No shame for this, all the traditional recipes must be respected. However, the authentic Genoese pesto sauce is made with pine nuts, preferably the one cultivated in Tuscany, from Pisa precisely. They are quite expensive, but the good news is that you don’t really need many to make your pesto (a couple of spoons may suffice). Pine nuts are important because they give a sweet flavour to pesto and confer a certain creaminess due to the oils that they contain.

CHEESE – Some recipes call only for parmesan cheese, some add also matured pecorino cheese (which is more spicy and salty). In this case the proportion should be 1/4 pecorino cheese and 3/4 parmesan cheese. Somebody prefers a more “rude” pesto and uses more pecorino than parmesan (in the last year spent holding pesto cooking classes I actually discovered that I love some pecorino cheese in the pesto, it gets a stronger personality). In any case, as to parmesan cheese, it is better to choose an old parmesan cheese (matured at least 24-30 months). Old parmesan, indeed, melt better with the sauce and gives a more defined and harmonic taste. Young parmesan, on the other hand, tends to get sticky when heated and will cause your pesto to stick to the bottom of the pasta plate.

EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL – The perfect oil is an extra virgin olive oil from the Italian Riviera, which is delicate and not too pungent.  Olive oil plays a very important role in pesto sauce: it melts and amalgamate all the ingredients, encapsulate the essentials oils given off the basil leaves and prevent your pesto to oxidize keeping its sparkling green colour.

2. THE RIGHT TOOLS

MARBLE MORTAR AND PESTEL– These have been the main tools of Genoese cooks for centuries, the only mean for smashing food. Traditionally, therefore, pesto is made in the mortar. You can do pesto in the food processor, of course. However, notwithstanding the progress made in the last century, pesto made in this way still have a taste and a look far better than pesto made with a food processor. This because basil leaves in the mortar are actually “torn up” by the pestel and not cut. In this way the green essential oils contained in the basil leaves come off perfectly. Furthermore, the marble of the mortar is cold and this prevents the oxidation of basil. Pesto made with the mortar, therefore, is definitely tastier, more scented and pleasantly light green.

You would like to prove yourself hand-making pesto but miss marble mortar and pestle? No problem! You can buy them on-line. If you live in Italy or in Europe you can go directly to the Etsy online shop of La Marmotecnica, the biggest produces of marble mortar in Carrara (the mortars that Genoese actually use). If you live in the U.S. go on Williams Sonoma  website, they  actually sell the very marble mortars of La Marmotecnica.

FOOD PROCESSOR – If you do not have enough time or a marble mortar at your disposal you can do pesto sauce in the food processor as well, of course. There are however some tricks to adopt, especially in order to minimize oxidation:

– Sometimes before making pesto put the food processor bowl and the blades in the fridge to make them very cold.

– Use the food processor intermittently. In this way the blades revolving will not cause too much heat.

– If available use an immersion blender, don’t ask me why but the pesto comes off better.

As to the pesto recipe using the food processor, the ingredients are obviously the same, though for making pesto sauce in the food processor it is advisable to double or triple the doses (you can then stock the sauce in the freezer for even a couple of months).

On the other side, ingredients shall put in the food processor in the following order: garlic, pine nuts and half of the extravirgin oil. Mix until they become a cream. Add basil and mix. Add cheese and mix. Add the second half of oil but gently melt with a spoon (in order to avoid the oil emulsify). In the end adjust with salt.

3. SECRET TIPS & TRICKS

1. Remove all stems from the basil leaves. The stems, in fact, not only contain water but also bring a bitter taste.
2. Use a sweet garlic and always remove the green tip inside.
3. Never sharply cut or smash the basil leaves but gently rotate the pestle along the mortar walls, so that the leaves are “torn up” and free their essential oils.
4. Use a seasoned Parmesan cheese. In addition to give a more intense flavour, it avoids pesto sticking to the bottom of the plate when pasta is seasoned.
5. Taste during each step in the process and adjust accordingly, because garlic and basil are not always the same! The very secret of pesto is balance, the right equilibrium among all the ingredients! If the pesto comes out too salty, add less parmesan cheese and/or if necessary less salt to the pasta water.
6. Finish the process as soon as possible to prevent the pesto from oxidizing.
7. Cover the pesto with a thin layer of extra-virgin olive oil always to avoid oxidation.

4. PESTO RECIPE

Watch the full episode of Flavors of Genoa on how to order pesto.

Making pesto is only part of the story.

If you’re planning a trip to Genoa, one of the questions you’ll soon face is: which pasta should I order? Trofie, trenette with potatoes and green beans, mandilli de saea, gnocchi… the choices can be surprisingly confusing.

In this episode of my Youtube series Flavors of Genoa, I take you inside one of Genoa’s traditional restaurants to show you the different ways locals enjoy pesto and how to order it like a local.

Where to eat pesto in Genoa

If you’d like to taste authentic pesto while you’re in Genoa, these are a few places I happily recommend.

• Il Genovese – A restaurant dedicated to traditional Genoese cuisine, known for its handmade pasta and pesto.
• Mangiabuono – An informal trattoria in the historic center, serving traditional Genoese dishes, including trofie and gnocchi with pesto.
• Trattoria Rosmarino – Traditional Ligurian cooking in the heart of the city, with a fresh and well-balanced pesto.

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Experience pesto beyond the recipe

If this guide has made you curious about Genoese pesto, the best place to discover it is here in Genoa.

You can join one of my cooking classes, where we’ll prepare pesto together from scratch using a traditional marble mortar, or explore the city’s food culture on one of my food tours.

If you prefer to discover Genoa at your own pace, my Genoa Food Guide includes over 120 carefully selected food addresses, from traditional restaurants (where to find more and more pesto!) and focaccerie to bakeries, gelaterie, wine bars and many other local favorites.

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The post Pesto Genovese Recipe: The Complete Guide (+ Video & Where to Eat It in Genoa) appeared first on A Small Kitchen in Genoa.

Camogli is one of the most beautiful — and still quite underrated — places to visit and eat in Liguria. Tucked between Genoa and the Portofino promontory, this small fishing village punches well above its weight when it comes to food: fresh seafood restaurants overlooking the harbour, bakeries turning out perfect focaccia al formaggio, and a handful of local shops selling some of the best Ligurian products you’ll find anywhere on the coast. Whether you’re looking for the best restaurants in Camogli, curious about what to eat here, or planning a longer stay in the Golfo Paradiso, this guide covers everything you need — written by someone who has been exploring these flavours for years, and who also leads small food tours through the village for anyone who’d like to taste it all in person.

At the bottom of the post you will also find my custom-made Camogli Food Google Map for finding these places when you are there!

Camogli has always been one of my favourite seaside villages in Liguria. For years I imagined how much I’d love living here, especially in winter, when the town grows quiet again, the tables along the seafront empty out, the sea turns darker, and between the tall coloured houses you breathe that slightly suspended stillness typical of small fishing villages.

Today Camogli has become an increasingly beloved destination for international tourism too. And yet, despite everything, it still manages to hold onto something authentic. You just need to step out during the quieter hours, slip into the side streets, watch the harbour in the early morning, or stop to talk with the people who actually live here — and the village’s seafaring soul comes right back to you.

Perhaps that’s why I still come back today as I did back then, and why I love telling its story through my food tours: because Camogli’s cuisine isn’t just about dishes, but about everyday gestures, the scent of freshly baked focaccia, fishing nets, ancient traditions and recipes born while gazing out at the sea.

If you’re planning a few days in the Golfo Paradiso and you love travelling through taste, here are some addresses where I like to stop when I’m in Camogli.

Best Restaurants in Camogli

Da Paolo — Refined Seafood in the Heart of the Village

Da Paolo is one of those restaurants that manages to combine very solid seafood cooking with a relaxed atmosphere, without ever becoming too formal.

I happily return whenever I feel like eating fish prepared with real care, in an elegant setting that still remains deeply connected to the spirit of the village. The menu follows seasonality and local catch closely, with well-executed Ligurian dishes and a few more contemporary offerings.

One thing I particularly appreciate is the attention given to gluten-intolerant diners: in Camogli, finding a restaurant that handles this aspect well isn’t a given, and Da Paolo remains one of the most reliable addresses for anyone looking for a careful, worry-free gluten-free experience.

Vento Ariel — Harbour Views and Traditional Ligurian Cooking

Vento Ariel is one of those places that, the moment you sit down, makes you feel immediately at home in Camogli.

The harbour practically right in front of your eyes, boats drifting slowly in and out, the light shifting throughout lunch — much of this restaurant’s charm lies in its relationship with the sea.

What I love most here is the more traditional Ligurian seafood cooking, the kind that truly tells the story of the territory. Fish dishes, anchovies, simple but deeply characterful preparations, without unnecessary flourishes.

It’s the classic spot I recommend for lunch, perhaps after a long walk along the seafront or up on the headland, taking your time to settle into the slow rhythm of the village.

Cucù — Creative Ligurian Cuisine for a More Intimate Dinner

Cucù has a different feel from Camogli’s more traditional restaurants.

More intimate, more contemporary, with a kitchen that starts from the Ligurian territory but allows itself a certain creative freedom. I like it because it strikes a good balance: you can sense the research behind the cooking, yet without losing its connection to the sea and local ingredients.

Here I always find it interesting to let myself be guided by the daily specials and whatever’s in season, especially when the menu works well with the local catch and Ligurian vegetables.

It’s a place I recommend to anyone looking for a slightly more intimate, less touristy dinner in Camogli.

La Bossa — Wine Bar and Easy Evenings by the Sea

La Bossa is where I’d go for a relaxed evening, without too much ceremony.

I like it especially for the convivial atmosphere and the wine selection, which is very interesting for anyone who loves drinking well without necessarily wanting a full sit-down dinner. It’s one of those spots where you might pop in for a glass and end up staying all evening, ordering small bites and chatting unhurriedly.

In a tourist destination like Camogli, where everything in summer can feel very rushed, La Bossa instead keeps a pleasantly unhurried pace.

Fermento — Natural Wines and Contemporary Ligurian Small Plates

Fermento is one of those places that surprises me every time I come back to Camogli.

I’d describe it as a contemporary bistrot with a strong food-and-wine soul. Here, Ligurian cuisine isn’t simply reproduced but reinterpreted through small plates designed for sharing, carefully selected ingredients and a constant exploration of ingredients and pairings.

What I particularly love is the atmosphere: informal, lively, curious. It’s the kind of place you might pop into for an aperitivo and end up staying all evening, working your way through dish after dish, letting the staff and the wine list guide you.

The natural wine selection is probably one of the main reasons it’s worth stopping here. The bottles come from small producers and are chosen with great care, making Fermento an interesting stop not only for anyone who loves eating well, but also for anyone who loves drinking well.

La Playa — Seafront Dining at Hotel Cenobio dei Dogi

La Playa, the seafront restaurant at Hotel Cenobio dei Dogi, deserves a special mention above all for its location.

Eating practically on the water, with the sound of waves beneath the terrace and an open view over the Golfo Paradiso, gives you a real sense of that elegant yet still understated Ligurian Riviera.

I love it especially at lunchtime, when the light falls full on the sea and the village seems to slow right down. The cooking centres on fish and local produce, in a style that’s more classic and refined compared to the trattorias in the centre.

What to Eat in Camogli: Street Food and Local Specialities

In Camogli there are certain flavours that I think are worth seeking out and savouring slowly, without the rush of ticking places off a list.

Among the local specialities not to miss:

• Genovese focaccia — the real thing, eaten warm, straight from the oven
• Focaccia col formaggio — thinner, softer, filled with a fresh local cheese called stracchino
• Farinata — a thin, crispy chickpea pancake, baked in a wood-fired oven
• Fried fish — simple, fresh, and best eaten by the harbour
• Paciugo — Camogli’s own layered gelato dessert, a local institution
• Camogliesi al rum — small chocolate-covered rum cakes, the village’s most iconic sweet

Where to find some of them:

Focacceria Revello

If there is one stop I always include in my Camogli food tours — and one I’d recommend to anyone visiting Camogli — it’s Focacceria Revello.

Revello is a true Camogli institution. The kind of place that has been part of the daily life of the village for generations, long before Camogli became a destination on anyone’s travel radar. Locals queue here in the morning for their focaccia, and rightly so. Also tourists queue so… better skip rush hours!

This is where I bring people on my food tours to taste several of the specialities listed above, but above all for one thing: the Focaccia al formaggio di Recco. If you’ve never tried it before, Revello is the right place for your first time — hot out of the oven, with the stracchino still melting inside, eaten standing up with no particular ceremony. Exactly as it should be.

Don’t leave without trying whatever else has just come out of the oven. At Revello, timing is everything — and everything tastes better warm.

Where to Have Coffee in Camogli — and Where to Drink After Dark

Bistingo

Bistingo is one of the places I most enjoy stopping for coffee or a cold drink in Camogli.

I like it because it allows you to do one of the most wonderful things you can do in a Ligurian village: sit without hurry and watch the town drift slowly past your eyes.

It has two very different outdoor seating areas, and each has its perfect moment. The one on the beach, beneath the church, is wonderful early in the morning or towards evening, when the light drops and the sea grows calmer. At lunchtime, especially in summer, the sun can be quite strong.

The patio overlooking the little harbour, on the other hand, is perfect during the hottest hours of the day: more sheltered, breezy, and ideal for lingering over a drink while watching the boats, the fishermen and the constant gentle bustle of the small port.

It’s one of those simple places that tells you a great deal about the authentic rhythm of Camogli.

Il Pirata

Il pirata is the best place for a drink after dinner.

For me, it’s impossible to think of Camogli without thinking of this place. When I was very young I used to come here to drink and dance on summer evenings, when the village transformed completely after dinner and the harbour filled with young people, music and tables spilling outside.

Il Pirata has that slightly timeless atmosphere of seaside bars that resist trends and keep going above all thanks to the people who have been coming for years. It’s best known for its selection of rum and whisky, but also for its sangria, which here has become something of a summer institution.

I like including it in this guide because it tells another side of Camogli: not just the slow, unhurried one of bakeries and seafront lunches, but the more convivial, nocturnal one — made of shared glasses, music and evenings that ended far later than planned.

Food shopping in Camogli: the best local products to bring home

If you love bringing home something truly Ligurian, the place I’d recommend stepping into is Vizi & Sfizi, Assunta’s tiny shop.

It’s one of those places that looks small from the outside but holds an entire world within. Ligurian wines, extra virgin olive oil, biscuits, preserves, artisan pasta and many carefully chosen products.

I like it because it has nothing of the tourist shop built for visitors: it’s a real bottega, built on personal selection, good conversation and products that genuinely speak of the territory.

Two more stops worth making in Camogli

Completely off the gastronomic theme, but too lovely not to mention.

L’Ultima Spiaggia is an independent bookshop on the seafront promenade that every time forces me to step in “just for a quick look” — and from which I invariably leave with a book. It has a beautiful selection of children’s books, many volumes dedicated to Liguria, the sea and travel, and a slow, carefully curated atmosphere that feels as though it belongs to another era. And yes, it also sells my book.

Pietre Strette is a clothing and design shop I adore for its extremely refined and contemporary taste — one of those places where even simply looking at the objects on display becomes a source of inspiration. Here too you’ll find my book among the shelves.

Plan your visit to Camogli

Camogli is a small village, but gastronomically far richer than it might seem on a first stroll through. And that’s exactly what I love to tell during my food tours: not just where to eat, but why certain flavours exist here, how they came to be and what they tell us about Liguria’s seafaring history.

If you’re planning a trip to Liguria and would like to discover Camogli through its food alongside me, you’re welcome to get in touch to join my food tours — through historic shops, stories, Ligurian street food and the traditions of the village.

My Camogli Google Map

Use the interactive map below to find every restaurant, café and shop mentioned in this guide. You can also use this link

The post | Liguria Food Guide| CAMOGLI: best restaurants, street food & tips by a local food writer appeared first on A Small Kitchen in Genoa.

It was the perfect excuse to carve out some time and lose myself in the narrow streets of the historic center, hunting for something good to eat.

Albenga is a city that reveals itself slowly: around every corner, between medieval towers and quiet squares, you’ll find small shops, bakeries, delicatessens, and local spots that tell the story of a very real, everyday Liguria, still deeply connected to the countryside around it (Albenga is the only plain we have in Liguria).

What follows is a very personal selection of the places I visited: all different, yet united by a strong identity and a clear idea of food and product.

If you find yourself in Albenga and want to taste something authentic and deeply rooted in this land, these are the places I think you should start from.

At the end of this post you will also fine a Google Map with all the addresses I selected.

Let’s start!

Museo della Civiltà dell’Olio – Frantoio Sommariva

Inside the medieval walls of Albenga, in a space that was once truly an olive mill, you’ll find a fascinating hybrid place: Museo della Civiltà dell’Olio della famiglia Frantoio Sommariva (Museum of Olive Oil Civilization run by the Sommariva family).

As soon as you walk in, you feel like you’re stepping through time. The old stone millstones are still there, solid and silent, telling the story of a craft that shaped the landscape and economy of western Liguria for centuries. Alongside them, though, the present is very much alive: the mill is still active, with a contemporary production that continues the tradition.

The visit becomes a dialogue between past and present.

The heart, of course, is the oil. Here you can explore a wide and articulated range: Ligurian extra virgin olive oils made from different varieties, including Taggiasca, but also pignola and colombaia. The selection spans from DOP to organic oils, blends, and monocultivars, offering a complete picture of local production.

Alongside the bottles, a pantry that feels like an extension of the Ligurian garden: artichokes in oil, preserved vegetables, olive pâtés, artichoke spreads. Everything is processed and preserved using the company’s own oil, in a coherent and deeply territorial approach where each product is connected to the others.

What makes the experience even more meaningful is the presence of the owner, Agostino Sommariva, a historic figure in the city. He has been working in this territory for over sixty years, becoming a reference point for the local food culture. His welcome is direct, genuine, without formality — the kind that turns a visit into a real encounter.

Zio pagnotta

Zio Pagnotta is very small family-run bakery where work is still guided by the rhythm of fermentation rather than the clock.

You feel the dedication immediately — in the smell of the bread, in the intimate atmosphere of the workshop, in the way each product is described.

The core of production is naturally leavened bread. Among the most interesting variations is the one with aromatic herbs: the herbs are blended with extra virgin olive oil to create a deeply fragrant base.

Alongside it, there is an even more essential and fascinating bread: naturally fermented using only flour, water, and salt. No added yeast — fermentation happens through airborne microorganisms. The result is a light, digestible bread with a living structure. Probably one of the best I’ve tasted in recent years.

But Zio Pagnotta is not just about bread. The counter is a small story of western Ligurian tradition: from focaccia genovese to sardenaira (with tomato, anchovies, and garlic), to vegetable pies made with what the season and nearby countryside offer: chard, artichokes, asparagus, tomatoes. Everything incredibly fresh (I can confirm — I met the farmers delivering!).

Non solo pane

Non solo pane is a micro bakery and food shop specializing in traditional breads from inland Liguria.

Here you’ll find historic types such as the bread of Pieve di Teco, Triora, and Gavenola, characterized by thick crusts, long fermentation, and excellent keeping qualities.

Also available are biscuits from Pasticceria Cagna, a Piedmontese bakery tied to local confectionery traditions.

An essential stop if you want to discover the historic breads of the Ligurian hinterland.

BAXIN

Overlooking the church square in the historic center, axin is a small pastry shop with a very focused production.

The main product is the baxin, from which the shop takes its name: ancient biscuits from Albenga, said to date back to the 1700s. Round, crumbly, and defined by the presence of anise seeds, which give them their distinctive aromatic profile.

Alongside them, you’ll find the traditional “pane del marinaio”, a sweet bread rich in dried and candied fruit, along with similar variations often enriched with chocolate or other ingredients.

A very simple place, working on a few products closely tied to local tradition.

Piccinini

Gastronomia Piccinini is one of the oldest businesses in the city. The family has been running it since the early 1900s: from great-grandfather to grandfather to the current generation, in a rare continuity.

Originally it was both a bakery and an oil mill: bread and oil were produced in the same space. The workshop bordered a 13th-century Franciscan convent, and even today a small wooden door still leads directly into the cloister. In the past, it was always left open: people could come in, take bread, oil, or something cooked, and leave an offering.

Today the shop is run by Vittorio Piccinini, a bright, welcoming presence, fully aware of the value of what he carries forward. The cuisine is family cuisine.

Bread remains central. It is made using the same sourdough starter that has been kept alive for over a century. The flours are organic, stone-ground, and come from nearby Piedmont. The result is highly aromatic bread, with a structure that also favors digestibility.

Alongside it, the counter is dominated by vegetable pies, the true strength of the shop. They follow the seasons and reflect a very vegetable-forward tradition: lots of greens, little cheese or ricotta, and a precise use of aged Parmigiano Reggiano (around 26 months). The dough, compared to the Genovese version, is slightly richer in oil.

Among the most representative preparations: chard pie, artichoke pie, trombetta zucchini pie — all tied to the rhythm of the local garden.

Some recipes are still in the hands of the older generation: Vittorio’s mother, still active, prepares meat sauce, cima alla genovese, and a sponge cake from the hinterland made exclusively with extra virgin olive oil.

Alongside the prepared food, the shop offers a curated selection of local products: wines, oils, biscuits, flours, cured meats, and cheeses. In the back, a larger kitchen supports daily production.

Piccinini remains a true gastronomia in the fullest sense: a place where food is still connected to people, memory, and territory

PUPPO – Farinata

Among the historic spots of Albenga, Trattoria Pupo is an essential stop for farinata, prepared here according to a tradition that has remained unchanged over time.

The story begins in the 1950s, when “Pupo” sold farinata on the street, with just wood-fired ovens and a cart. Between 1956 and 1958 came the first tables, and eventually the trattoria itself.

The ovens are still the original ones, wood-fired only, working today with the same rhythm. Every ten minutes, a farinata comes out of the large copper pans, always hot. During baking, flames lick the surface, creating the classic golden crust.

The result is a play of contrasts: a soft, creamy interior and a thin, crispy exterior with a deep hazelnut color.

A distinctive detail is the rosemary: just a few leaves, enough to give that aromatic note that immediately evokes the Ligurian landscape.

Since 2003, the place has been run by a family already experienced in making farinata. The father, now elderly, still personally prepares the torta pasqualina.

Alongside the farinata, you’ll find other Ligurian classics: fried panissa, torta pasqualina, stuffed vegetables.

The space is simple and coherent with its history: wooden tables with marble tops, terrazzo floors, walls of wood and lime. A trattoria that has remained true to itself.

Bear House- birrificio agricolo

In a cobblestone square in the historic center, Bear House, is a project that combines farm, brewery, and pub. They define themselves as an “agricultural brewery”.

The idea comes from growing their own raw materials: barley and hops are cultivated by the company itself in the plain. Beer production is currently outsourced to Piedmont, but the goal is to bring it entirely on-site.

The space is informal, inspired by English pubs: large shared outdoor tables, no table service, a convivial atmosphere.

Alongside the beers, the food offering is surprisingly rooted in the territory: quick dishes halfway between street food and Ligurian tradition. Stuffed focaccia, but also less common dishes: sbira (tripe soup), zimino di seppie (chard and cuttlefish stew), fried panissa, and stroscia (a crumbly olive oil cake from the hinterland), all served in a simple and direct way.

The project is led by Samuele Scola, who comes from a family with a long tradition in hospitality. His grandparents ran a historic restaurant in Castelbianco. That legacy is evident in the quality and the attention to Ligurian cuisine.

Bear Lab – gastronomia contemporanea

Sempre loro, i proprietari di Bear House, hanno aperto nelle vicinanze Bear Lab – una gastronomia contemporanea, con un’impostazione giovane e funzionale.

The same owners of Bear House have opened a contemporary eatery nearby – Bear Lab – una gastronomia contemporanea, -with a young and functional approach.

The base is still Ligurian cuisine: savory pies, polpettone, soups, stews, and focaccia. Traditional dishes, designed for more flexible consumption.

Once a week, fresh pasta is made by hand directly in the window — if you’re lucky, you can watch it being prepared live.

The most interesting aspect is the production system: dishes are blast-chilled immediately after preparation to preserve quality and safety. They are then sold frozen or reheated on request.

This approach reduces food waste significantly without compromising quality.

Alongside the prepared dishes, there is also a small selection of carefully chosen local products.

Casa del Gelato

Just outside the walls, near the train station, Casa del Gelato:is an artisanal gelateria active for over thirty years, run by Roberto and his son.

About 90% of what is served is made in-house. Rather than “zero kilometer,” Roberto prefers to talk about “good kilometer”: when ingredients are not local, they are still chosen for proximity and quality.

The flavors change frequently. Among the most interesting: fiordilatte with sea salt crystals and caramel, and the “cramboloso” with homemade hazelnut biscuits.

Each gelato is built on multiple textures: creamy, soft or syrupy, and always a crunchy component from biscuits or crumble.

Great attention is given to intolerances: almost all gelato is gluten-free, including added elements. There are also sugar-free and lactose-free options.

Noberasco – old candied and dry fruit shop

Walking into Noberasco, in the heart of Albenga, feels a bit like stepping back in time.

The shop has a deeply evocative atmosphere: antique furniture, terrazzo floors, tiered stands and large glass jars filled with dried and candied fruit, displayed almost like small treasures. It’s not just a store, but a true boutique of taste, with an aesthetic that recalls the early 20th century, when everything began right here in the Albenga plain.

Your eyes move from one color and texture to another: soft apricots, figs, dates, candied peels, chocolate-covered fruit. Everything is arranged with almost theatrical care, under glass domes and in transparent containers that invite you to look before you taste.

Noberasco is a historic company, founded in 1908 in Albenga, when the family began processing the fruits of the local plain and distributing them beyond the region. Today the selection is extensive, with products sourced from all over the world, always chosen with a strong focus on quality.

What stands out most is the balance between tradition and a contemporary way of presenting the product: the charm of an old-world shop combined with a modern approach to storytelling, packaging, and gifting.

It’s one of those places you walk into out of curiosity—and end up staying longer than expected, just looking around.

Enoteca Malandrone

Just outside Porta del Mulino, enoteca Malandrone has been a reference point since 1918.

The selection is broad — wines, spirits, champagne, truffles — but the most interesting aspect is the focus on wine.

Rather than a generic regional selection, the focus is on western Liguria, with a very high number of labels per grape variety and area: Pigato, Rossese, Ormeasco di Pornassio, Granaccia, and other local varieties.

The result is a deep and detailed selection within a specific territory, ideal for comparing producers within the same denomination.

In recent years, they have also launched a distillery — the first in Liguria — producing grappa from local pomace and liqueurs made from local ingredients, such as limoncino and chinotto liqueur.

Albenga is a city that reveals itself slowly, and food is one of the most direct ways to truly enter it.

If you are planning a trip to Liguria with a group of friends and would like to explore these themes with me, we can create a tailored experience: a food tour of Albenga, a visit to an olive mill with tasting, an inland experience focused on extra virgin olive oil, or a Ligurian cooking class.

You can write to me — it will be a pleasure to build something together, starting right here, among the flavors of Albenga.

If instead you’d like to take a piece of this experience home, my book Liguria in cucina – The Flavors of Liguria is available in Albenga at Libreria San Michele, or you can order it directly online from my website. .

ALBENGA FOOD GUIDE

Ho raccolto tutti gli indirizzi in una mappa interattiva che puoi usare mentre cammini in città.

La puoi scaricare a questo link o consultarla qui sotto.

The post |Liguria food guide| ALBENGA appeared first on A Small Kitchen in Genoa.

Are you in Genoa and looking for a good place to taste fish from the Italian Riviera?

Over the past months, I’ve been putting together this list of seafood restaurants in the city — the kind of places I go back to, where traditional cuisine, sometimes with a touch of innovation, meets fresh fish and carefully selected ingredients.

This is not meant to be a complete list, but rather a selection to help you start exploring.

And this is not entirely my work. A special thanks goes to Enrico Sala, one of the most knowledgeable people I know when it comes to food and restaurants in Liguria. Former president of the regional Slow Food Liguria, he has spent years exploring restaurants, producers, and local traditions. His input helped me refine this list and make it more focused and reliable.

In the capsule below I’ve divided the restaurants into three main areas of the city. For each one, you’ll find useful details such as location, website or Instagram page (when available), average price, and weekly closing day. If you click on the address, it will open directly in Google Maps. I always recommend booking in advance, and checking opening days, especially during holiday periods.

If you’d like to go further, I’ve gathered a much broader selection of food places in my Genoa Food Guide, where you’ll find over 35 restaurants — along with many other food spots across the city like focaccerie, bakeries, gelato shops, cocktails bars, cafè.

So, here we go.

Seafood restaurants in the west side of Genoa

TERESA DAL 1986

Piazza Lido 5-6R,

www.ristoranteteresa.it 

IG: https://www.instagram.com/ristorante_teresa/

tel: 00390106973774

Closing day: Tuesday.

Price: €55/60

Managed by the same family since 50 years, in 2008 the restaurant passed to Mrs Teresa’s sons who transformed an old trattoria into an elegant restaurant. Dishes are always changing according to season and chef’s inspiration, who has always a look at local traditions. Pasta and bread are homemade daily. Sweets too are handmade and there is a small patisserie corner where to buy and take away some of them. Fish arrives every morning just caught by the fisherman.

Do not miss: Cappon Magro (the traditional Genoa seafood salad).

LA VOGLIA MATTA

Via Cerusa 63R (Voltri),

www.lavogliamatta.org

tel: 00390106101889

Closing day: Monday.

Price: €30/50

This restaurant is located in an historic building of the sixteenth century where originally the oldest bakery of Voltri had its seat. The chef revises in an interesting way the local culinary traditions. Main hero on the table is the so called “poor fish” (bluefish mainly) of the Ligurian sea, dressed however like a king. All vegetables are seasonal and from local producers. The wine cellar counts more than 200 labels. Do not miss: raw fish.

ANTICA OSTERIA TOE DRUE

Via Carlo Corsi 44R,  www.toedrue.it,

IG: https://www.instagram.com/ristorante_toedrue/

tel: 00390106500100

Closing day: Saturday at lunch and Sunday.

Price: €30/38

The restaurant was founded in the early ‘900 to accommodate the workers of the nearby Shipyards. The origin of the name “Toe Drûe” (Thick Tables) derives from the tables still present inside the room. In the years it has become an important reference point of Genoa and Sestri Ponente, an informal and family environment but still a local sought for the proposed seafood and traditional cuisine. Raw materials are of first quality and the cuisine is especially marinara: Cappon Magro, fish soup, scallops on pumpkin cream are some of the tasty plates you can find. Bread, pasta and desserts are strictly home-made. The cellar offers a selection of wines of high level: labels from the best known and renowned cellars to small  but excellent producers.

  TRATTORIA BARISONE

Via Siracusa 2R,

IG: https://www.instagram.com/trattoriabarisone/

tel: 00390106049863

Closing day: Sunday and Monday.

Price: €40/60

The third generation of the same family is ahead of this restaurant famous in town since 1945. Ligurian cuisine is the main protagonist on their tables. Menu changes according to season and availability of the raw materials, which are all fresh and of first choice. Fish is the hero of the kitchen: anchovies cooked in ten different ways, octopus salad, fish fry…Pasta courses are seasoned with traditional sauces as pesto and walnuts sauce. The cellar has more that 100 lables, white wines are local.

Dish not to miss: fish fry.

RISTORANTE SCALVINI

Piazza Pontedecimo 28R,

www.ristorantescalvinipontedecimo.com,

Tel: 00390107855218

Closing day: Saturday at lunch and Monday.

Price: €40/50.

Though the place is not close to the sea, this restaurant is famous in town for its seafood cuisine, traditional and innovative at the same time. Fish is only catch of the day, raw materials are seasonal and of the highest quality. This restaurant founded in 2007 is a branch of an historical local pastry shop whose pastry chef still prepares the desserts for the restaurant. Cuisine is also vegan and gluten free friendly.The cellar counts ab 350 labels, Italian and international, champagne included.

Dish not to miss: scallops with Jerusalem artichokes and truffle.

Seafood restaurants in Genoa historic center/down town

IL MARIN

Calata Cattaneo 15

www.eataly.it 

Tel: 00390108698722

Closing day: Tuesday

Vacations: Christmas and New Year

Price: €60

 Il Marin is the Eataly Genova gourmet restaurant completely dedicated to the sea. Here the Chef Marco Visciola studies and realizes every dish to best enhance the high quality raw materials. He defines his cuisine as a harmony between creativity and tradition. The protagonist of the kitchen is undoubtedly the fish: every day on the tables of Il Marin you can taste creative and original dishes with raw materials coming from the Genoa sea. Here one of the latest menu. The restaurant, located in the heart of Porto Antico and with its windows designed by Renzo Piano, has one of the most beautiful view on Genoa port.

Do not miss: Cappon magro 2.0

I CUOCHI 

Vico del Fieno 18R 

IG: https://www.instagram.com/icuochi/

Tel: 00390102476170

Closing day: Monday.

Vacations: variable

Price: €30/50

The restaurant opened in 2016 in an historical building, originally a cat house, and still maintains an intriguing and seductive furniture. Julian Mane, chef and owner of the restaurant, refurbished it by his hands. On his menu only seasonal and 0km raw materials. He cooks Liguria traditional cuisine but with a touch of creativity. Fish, needless to say, is the hero on the table.The cellar, with ab 80 labels, winks at local emerging wine producers.

Do not miss: local small squids sauté with pesto sauce.

IL PESCIOLINO

Via San Sebastiano 6 -entrance Best Western Hotel)

www.locandapesciolino.it 

IG: https://www.instagram.com/pesciolino_ge/

tel:00390105532131

Closing day: Sunday at dinner.

Vacations: never

Price: €35/50

 Il Pesciolino is located inside the Best Western City Hotel. The ambient, structured on different floors, and furnished as a private home is cozy and warm. The Chef Mirco Cogo treat only first class raw materials, always fresh and 0km. Everything is hand made from scratch, including bread, pasta and desserts. Mirco cuisine is creative and surprising. He offers regional plates with a twist of imagination and recipes he developed in the years. Fried prawn in almonds crust, shrimp ravioli on pumpkin puree, tonnetto in pistachios crust. The cellar counts about 100 labels among local and international wines and beers.

Do not miss: fish soup without bones.

TRATTORIA DELL’ACCIUGHETTA 

Piazza Sant’Elena

www.acciughetta.it 

IG: https://www.instagram.com/tdacciughetta/

closing day: Monday.

Tel: 00390108693918

Vacations: variable

Price: €30/40

A young, smiling and alive restaurant in the heart of downtown opened by Giogia, a sommelier in her early thirties, in 2015. One of the coolest restaurant in town in these days. A very tiny place (30 square meters) which is a cooking laboratory where the young chef Simone experiments a brave and succeeding cuisine. All the ingredients are bough in the surrounding neighborhood and fish the port market. The main hero, needless to say, are anchovies (“acciughetta” in Italian means indeed small anchovy) and local fish. The staff is all under 25. The restaurant has also a beautiful small dehors for the summer nights. The cellar counts 37 labels with local wines, bears and bubbly.

Do not miss: Quattro sfumature d’acciuga (four shades of anchovies)

Seafood restaurants outside Genoa historic center

RISTORANTE IPPOGRIFO 

Via Raffaele Gestro 9/1 r  www.ristoranteippogrifo.it

IG: https://www.instagram.com/ristorante_ippogrifo/

tel: 0039010592674

Closing day: never

Vacations: second and third week of August

Price: €40/70

Ippogrifo, opened in 1982, is one of the most well known and reputable restaurant in town. The owners, brothers from Salerno (south Italy), offer a Mediterranean cuisine which reflects both the Genoese tradition and their southern origin, in an elegant, polished and comfortable environment. All the raw materials are of the highest quality which makes their plates always exquisite. Pasta and bread are strictly handmade. Fish is one of the freshest in town as it arrives every evening straight from the fishing boats docking in Santa Margherita Ligure in the afternoon. In winter, they offer white truffles and mushrooms. As both owners are also wine lovers and expert, the restaurant praises on of the richest cellars in town, with ab 800 labels of wines and champagnes on first class.

Do not miss: raw fish starter

RISTORANTE SANGIORGIO

Viale Brigate Bisagno 96r,

www.ristorantesangiorgiogenova.it

IG: https://www.instagram.com/sangiorgiogenova/

TEL: 00390105955205

Closing day: Sunday in July and August

Vacations: August

Price: €40/50

 Scala family, the owners of the restaurant, opened San Giorgio 16 years ago. The cuisine mixes the Genoese tradition with some innovation, all based on local fresh first quality raw materials. Menu changes according to seasons but there are some traditional seafood dishes which are always present: cappon magro, fish soup, stewed cod. The cellar is very rich with national and international wines.

Do not miss: fish soup

VOLTA LA CARTA 

Via Assarotti 60R

www.voltalacartagenova.it

IG: https://www.instagram.com/ristorantevoltalacarta/

tel: 00390108312046

Closing day: Sunday.

Vacations: second half of August

Price: €45/60).

The owners Maurizio (chef) and Stefania are fond of local niche products and slow food presidia and this is what they offer in their restaurant. The cuisine is creative and seafood is the only hero. Plates are simple but with a gourmet imprinting.Bread and focaccia are strictly handmade. In the cellar about 100 labels, mainly made of organic and biodynamic wines.

Do not miss: cappon magro

Looking for more places?

These are just a few places to start.

If you’d like to go a bit deeper, I’ve put together an interactive Genoa Food Guide where I’ve collected all the places I go back to over time.

It includes more than 120 food spots across the city, with over 35 restaurants and many other addresses — bakeries, focaccerie, gelaterie, wine bars and small local places that are part of everyday life in Genoa — all organized by category, so it’s easy to navigate depending on what you’re looking for.

→ Get the Genoa Food Guide

Experience Genoa through its food differently

So, if you are planning a visit to Genoa, or you are already hungry in Genoa,  you have now some directions for tasting the best seafood in town! If you want to taste some traditional food, too, then have a look at the post on My best traditional restaurant in Genoa.

If a good meal  is not enough to get in touch with the culinary tradition of a place,  why don’t you try a different food experience? I can offer you a Genoa food tour  to taste the gluttony of the city during a pleasant walk:

Or you can immerse yourself with a  Genoa cooking class to learn to cook like a local in my kitchen

The post Where to eat seafood in Genoa (a personal selection of restaurants) appeared first on A Small Kitchen in Genoa.

Genoa reveals itself first through food. Not as a collection of famous dishes, but as the result of centuries of exchange between land and sea. This has always been a port city, a gateway — ianua in Latin — where spices, grains, olive oil, and ideas arrived daily on ships from across the Mediterranean.

Walk through the narrow caruggi of the historic center and imagine them filled with camalli unloading cargo, sailors waiting to depart, farmers coming down from the hills, traders and merchants gathering for making business.  Many had no kitchen of their own. They needed food that was warm, nourishing, affordable, and ready to eat while standing up, leaning against a wall, or under the arcades of Sottoripa.

Much of Genoa’s cuisine was born there: in the glow of wood-fired ovens inside old sciamadde, in the scent of olive oil rising from friggitorie, and in bowls of minestrone carried to crews anchored in the harbor.

Once you know this, a slice of focaccia is no longer just bread with oil. Farinata is not simply a chickpea flatbread. Even gelato carries the memory of convent gardens and maritime trade.

If you are wondering what to eat in Genoa, the answer is not just a list of dishes. It is a story shaped by necessity, trade, and refinement.

In the sections below, you will find the essential foods to try, and the context that gives them meaning.

Genoa street food: where to start

To understand what to eat in Genoa, you must begin in the street.

Long before restaurants became destinations, the historic center of Genoa was already feeding the city. Beneath the arcades of Sottoripa and inside the narrow caruggi, small ovens and frying shops offered food to sailors, dockworkers, and traders who had neither time nor a kitchen. Street food here was never a trend. It was a necessity.

Genoese Focaccia: The One Thing You Cannot Miss

Golden, slightly crisp on the outside and soft inside, Genoese focaccia is more than just a snack — it is a daily ritual. In Genoa, it is eaten for breakfast, as a quick bite during the day, or even dipped into cappuccino, a habit that might surprise visitors but perfectly captures the city’s food culture.

Made with flour, water, yeast, olive oil and salt, focaccia may seem simple, yet its balance of texture and flavor is the result of centuries of practice. The surface is dimpled by hand and generously brushed with olive oil and brine, creating that signature sheen and savory depth.

But not all focaccia is the same. Across the city, each bakery has its own interpretation — some thinner and crispier, others thicker and more airy. The best way to understand it is to taste it fresh out of the oven, still warm, ideally in the morning when locals line up for their daily piece.

In this video from my Flavors of Genoa series, I take you inside some of my favorite Genoa’s bakeries to peep how focaccia is actually made.

This is where Genoa reveals itself most clearly — in simple places, everyday habits and flavors that rarely need explanation.

Watch the full video on YouTube

If you’d like to go beyond the surface and discover where locals actually eat focaccia, you can join one of my Genoa food tours or explore my curated Genoa food guide — where I share the places I return to again and again.

If you want to bake it your self here on the blog there are two recipes: the perfect Genovese focaccia recipe we usually make at home and the Genovese focaccia recipe (indirect method), the bakers’ one, starting with a sponge.

Farinata: Genoa’s Ancient Chickpea Flatbread

If focaccia is soft and rich with olive oil, farinata is its perfect counterpart — thin, golden and deeply savory. Made with chickpea flour, water, olive oil and salt, this simple preparation dates back centuries and reflects Genoa’s long history of trade across the Mediterranean.

Baked in large copper pans inside wood-fired ovens, farinata develops a delicate crust on the outside while remaining creamy and almost custard-like in the center. It is sliced into irregular pieces and eaten hot, often standing at a small counter or on the street just outside the bakery.

Its flavor is subtle but unmistakable, with the nuttiness of chickpeas enhanced by the richness of olive oil and a slight smokiness from the oven. Like focaccia, it is part of everyday life — something quick, satisfying and deeply tied to the rhythm of the city.

While focaccia might be the first bite most visitors fall in love with, farinata reveals another side of Genoa — simpler, older and just as essential.

In this video from my Flavors of Genoa series, I take you inside some of my favorite Genoa’s “bakeries “sciamadde” – old eateries – to see how farinata is actually made.

If you want to prepare it at home, here is my Farinata recipe.

Friggitorie: Panissette and Frisceu

Beyond bakeries, another essential stop in Genoa’s street food scene is the friggitoria. Here, the flavors are bolder, the textures crispier, and the atmosphere unmistakably local.

Among the most iconic bites are panissette, small sticks of chickpea dough, lightly fried until golden on the outside while remaining soft inside. Simple and deeply satisfying, they share the same humble origins as farinata, transforming the same ingredients into something entirely different through technique. Read the panissette recipe on this blog for give them a try at home.

Then there are frisceu — delicate fritters made with a light batter, sometimes enriched with herbs, stockfish or vegetables. Irregular in shape and irresistibly crisp, they are meant to be eaten hot, often straight from a paper cone while walking through the narrow streets of the historic center. I love them with some cod inside (here my recipe)

Sciamadde: Vegetable Pies and Polpettone

Among the most distinctive places in Genoa’s food landscape are the sciamadde — humble, historic eateries once identified by the flame (“sciamadda” in dialect) that burned continuously in their wood-fired ovens. These were not restaurants, but places of everyday cooking, deeply tied to the city’s tradition of meatless cuisine.

Here, the focus is on “torte di verdura” vegetable pies, made with thin layers of dough (called “pasta matta”) and filled with seasonal ingredients such as chard, artichokes, zucchini or onions. Each pie reflects a balance between simplicity and care, where olive oil, herbs and fresh produce come together in preparations that are both light and deeply flavorful. The most famous one is “torta Pasqualina” prepared for Easter. It is stuffed with Swiss chars and ricotta and brings whole eggs inside.

Alongside them, you will often find polpettone — not a meatloaf, as the name might suggest, but a baked dish made with potatoes, green beans, eggs and cheese. Soft inside and lightly golden on top, it is a staple of home cooking that has naturally found its place in the street food culture of Genoa. You can find my polpettone recipe here on the blog and watch my video recipe on youtube.

If you want to taste the most authentic street food in Genoa, head to the historic center. Look for small, old shops rather than modern storefronts. The best places are often modest, with marble counters, tiled walls, and ovens that have been burning for decades.

Street food is the most immediate way to experience Genoa — but it’s also the easiest to miss if you don’t know where to go. The best bakeries, friggitorie and sciamadde are often hidden in plain sight, with no signs pointing them out. If you’d like to discover these places the way locals do, you can join one of my Genoa food tours or explore my curated Genoa food guide, where I share the spots I trust and return to every time.

Sweet Genoa: gelato and historic pastry shops

If Genoa’s street food tells the story of labor and necessity, its sweets reveal another side of the city — one shaped by convent gardens, noble tables, and the quiet elegance of historic cafés.

Sugar arrived here through maritime trade. As well almonds, citrus peels, candied fruit, and spices  arrived from the trades with the Arabic countries and became part of a refined tradition that still survives in the old pastry shops of the historic centred.

Gelato: unusual flavors with a memory

In Genoa, gelato is not just a summer treat, but another way to experience the city’s ingredients and traditions. Beyond the classic flavors, many gelaterie still reflect a deeply local identity, shaped by history, trade and the natural landscape.

The most iconic flavor is panera — a creamy gelato made with coffee and fresh cream, born in Genoa and still beloved by locals. Its taste is smooth and rounded, with a delicate balance between sweetness and the gentle bitterness of coffee. Simple, yet unmistakably tied to the city.

But what makes gelato in Genoa truly unique is the presence of flavors that echo the region itself. You might come across chinotto from Savona, with its complex citrus bitterness; rose, from the inner Scrivia Valley, floral and perfumed; or biter orange blossom from Vallebona, light and aromatic, reminiscent of orchards overlooking the sea.

In this video from my Flavors of Genoa series, I take you inside some of my favorite Genoa’s gelato shops.

These are not just unusual choices, but expressions of a place where cooking has always been connected to nature — herbs, flowers and fruits finding their way into both savory and sweet preparations.

Watch the full video on You tube

Historic Pastry Shops and Confetterie

Step inside a traditional Genoese pastry shop and you will notice the difference immediately. Marble counters, mirrors, frescoed ceilings and ornate details create an atmosphere that feels closer to a salon than to a simple bakery. These are not just places to buy sweets, but spaces that reflect the taste and social status of the city’s aristocracy and upper bourgeoisie.

Unlike other parts of Italian cuisine shaped by frugality, Genoese pastry tells a different story — one of wealth, trade and refinement. Sugar, once an expensive and precious ingredient, was accessible only to the richest families. Sweets were not everyday food, but a sign of status, reserved for special occasions or for those who could afford them.

This legacy is still visible today. Many of Genoa’s historic pastry shops have been open for more than a century, and their interiors remain largely unchanged — a quiet continuity that turns each visit into a step back in time, to an era defined by elegance and cultivated taste.

Candied fruits — jewel-like, translucent and meticulously prepared — remain one of the clearest symbols of this tradition. Alongside them, almond-based pastries, soft amaretti, delicate brioche and elaborate cakes reveal a pastry culture that balances restraint and indulgence, simplicity and sophistication.

In this video from my Flavors of Genoa series, I take you inside some of my favorite Genoa’s Pastry shops.

Sweetness in Genoa is never excessive. It is measured, layered and precise — yet capable of moments of true richness. Like the city itself, it reflects a refined sensibility shaped over centuries, where even dessert becomes an expression of place.

Want to explore Genoa through its sweet traditions? Check my food tours or discover by your own with my curated foodie guide.

Traditional Genoese dishes: what to eat beyond street food

Beyond street food, Genoese cuisine slows down. It moves into kitchens, Sunday tables, and recipes that take time — not to impress, but because they always have. This is a cuisine shaped by restraint and precision, where herbs, greens and a handful of ingredients are enough to build something complete.

Genoa pasta and sauces (Primi Piatti)

Pesto Genovese

No dish represents Genoa more than pesto — a fragrant sauce made with fresh basil, pine nuts, garlic, Parmigiano Reggiano, Pecorino and olive oil, traditionally crushed in a mortar.

It is served with dry pasta and fresh pasta. When it seasons dry pasta you will likely find it accompanied by potatoes and greenbeans (the so called “pesto avvantaggiato”).

Pesto may appear simple, but every detail matters — the variety of basil, the balance of flavors, the rhythm of the mortar. It is a preparation that invites you to look closer.

If you’d like to go deeper, you’ll find two articles on this blog dedicated to pesto: one exploring the ingredients and the traditional method, and another tracing its origins and history.

Also, in this video of my Youtube series “Flavors of Genova” I guide you how to order pesto in a Genoa restaurant (which is not so easy as it may appear!)

For a more direct experience, I also lead visits to basil greenhouses combined with a hands-on pesto class in the mortar — an opportunity to follow the ingredient from the plant to the final gesture (with tasting of course!)

Pansotti with Walnut Sauce (Pansotti con salsa di noci)

Large stuffed pasta filled with wild herbs and fresh cheese, pansotti reflect the tradition of cucina di magro. They are dressed with a creamy walnut sauce made with soaked bread, garlic, olive oil, and marjoram — a combination both rustic and refined.

Rich, slightly bitter and creamy at the same time, it reflects the region’s deep connection to foraged ingredients. On the blog you can find a post with story and recipe of pansoti.

Genoese Ravioli with “Tocco” (Ravioli al tocco)

Genovese ravioli are filled with a mixture of meat and greens and usually are serve with long-simmered beef sauce — rich but restrained. It is a dish for Sundays and celebrations. Again, as I’m a Genovese home cook and food writer, I already shared here my ravioli recipe, and my tocco recipe.

Minestrone alla Genovese

A vegetable soup deeply linked to the port city. Traditionally enriched at the end with fresh basil pesto, it combines seasonal vegetables, beans, and pasta or rice. Simple in appearance, complex in aroma. If you taste it and love it, you can cook it once back home with my minestrone recipe.

If you want to explore more about Ligurian pasta (names, shapes, origins) you can also read my Liguria food guide | Italian Riviera stuffed pasta and my Liguria food guide |Italian Riviera traditional pasta.

Genoa Meat and seafood (secondi Piatti)

Capponmagro

Often served as an elaborate antipasto, capponmagro is a layered composition of fish, vegetables, and hard biscuits soaked in seawater or vinegar, bound together with green sauce. It is both theatrical and symbolic — once a display of maritime abundance and noble refinement. Often restaurants offer it as an appetizer in single portions.

Stoccafisso Accomodato

Dried cod slowly cooked with potatoes, olives, and pine nuts. Stoccafisso accomodato is a reminder of Genoa’s trade routes with Northern Europe, where stockfish was imported and transformed into a deeply local dish.

Cima alla Genovese

A stuffed veal breast filled with herbs, vegetables, eggs, and sometimes pine nuts, then slowly simmered and sliced. Served cold, it embodies patience and precision. Cima Genovese is a classic of Ligurin Cucina Povera.

Tomaxelle

Tomaxelle are thin slices of veal rolled around a filling of meat, herbs, pinenuts then gently braised with or without tomato sauce .

Braised Rabbit (Coniglio stufato alla ligure)

Rabbit cooked with olives, pine nuts, and aromatic herbs, always braised with a generous dash of Ligurian wine. Light yet aromatic, Braised rabbit reflects the rural side of Liguria.

Trippa in umido

Stewed tripe, once central to the diet of working Genoa. Served in generous portions, it recalls the old tripperie that opened at dawn to feed laborers.

What unites these dishes is not extravagance, but intelligence. Genoese cuisine is careful, measured, and deeply connected to seasonality and place.

If you are visiting Genoa, look for traditional trattorie where these recipes are prepared without reinterpretation. Their strength lies in balance and local ingredients, not reinvention. Looking for the places locals actually go? Explore my curated Genoa food guide.

How to Experience Genoa Through Food

Reading about Genoa’s cuisine is a beginning. Tasting it in the right place makes the difference.

Many of the most authentic flavors of the city are not immediately visible to visitors. The best focaccia is often found in modest bakeries. The most traditional trattorie do not advertise loudly. Historic pastry shops can look understated from the outside.

If you would like to explore Genoa through its flavors with historical insight and carefully selected stops, you can join one of my Genoa Food Tours. A guided food tour allows you to experience these places with context — to understand why a certain oven matters, why a recipe developed in a particular neighborhood, and why restraint defines so much of Ligurian cooking.

→ Discover the Genoa Food Tours

If instead you prefer to explore independently, my Genoa Food Guide gathers carefully chosen places, practical advice, and historical notes to help you navigate the city’s culinary landscape at your own pace.

→ Download the Genoa Food Guide

For those who prefer a more hands-on experience, Ligurian cuisine also reveals itself through preparation. In my cooking classes, we shop ingredients together at the market and the cook with traditional techniques — from pesto made in a mortar to fresh pasta shaped by hand — connecting recipes to the land and the people that shaped them. You can learn more about my Italian cooking class in Genoa here:

→ Explore my Market day class

Finally, if you’d like to experience Ligurian cuisine beyond the journey, my bilingual cookbook Liguria in Cucina – the Flavors of Liguria invites you to recreate these flavors at home — a way to revisit places, moments and memories long after you’ve left the Riviera!

The post What to Eat in Genoa: Traditional Dishes, Street Food & Hidden Gems (Complete Food Guide) appeared first on A Small Kitchen in Genoa.

The name “Panera” comes from the contraction of the words “panna” (cream) and “nera” (black) because Panera is actually a coffee-stained whipped cream. And indeed the taste is just that: of latte macchiato, something less than cappuccino.

Be careful, it’s not a coffee ice cream!

It’s light, fluffy. The real, traditional one, which is sold in the best ice cream shops in the city, has no eggs inside. Just whipped cream, coffee and sugar.

Today the recipe is also listed at the Ministry of Agriculture as a typical product of Liguria (although produced only in Genoa).

It has the same taste everywhere then. Wrong! Every gelato shop has its own recipe (secret) and the result I swear is always different.

Some place make it more full-bodied, some more sweetened, some with a more intense taste of coffee. In short, each gelateria is a different experience. For this reason I suggest to the most greedy in a summer afternoon to take a “Panera tour” to discover the one they like best.

I already have clear ideas: my favorite is that of Cremeria Buonafede, in Via Luccoli, the heart of the historic center of Genoa. It is a historic Genoese workshop (dating back to 1913  ) that of the real Panera – whose recipe is handed down from 4 generations – has made its flagship  https://www.cremeriabuonafede.it/i-nostri-gusti/

The history of Panera

The origins of Panera seem to date back to the early 19th century. It is said, between myth and legend, that it was born by chance: a careless waiter stumbling poured some coffee on a cup of whipped cream, and from then the brilliant invention was born.

Traces of the famous cream and coffee semifreddo can already be found in the ancient cookbook “La Vera Cuciniera Genovese”  by Emanuele Rossi published in 1862.

Moreover, some argue that the invention of the “black cream” is attributable to the ice cream shop ” Gelateria Amedeo” in Boccadasse, which would have invented it in 1927 and from there this semifreddo would have spread in the other Genoese ice cream shop.

While the local sweets producer Preti says that it was the genius of its founder, Giovanni Preti- when the sweets factory was still only a renowned pastry shop in the center of the – to invent the “Gelato alla Panera”.

As it happens with all recipes that become traditional dishes, we will never know the truth!

Before jumping to the panera recipes (with or without ice cream maker) you have to know that I’ve visited some of my favorite gelato shops (including Buonafede) in one of the episodes of my Flavors of Genoa series, on youtube.

Here I will let you discover some other really unexpected gelato flavors very traditional of my city.

Genoa has lot of food secrets to discover!

You can watch the video on Youtube as well.

Recipe for making Panera at home.

If you own an ice cream maker,  you can recreate at home  Panera semifreddo like the one you can find in Genoese ice cream parlors. This is the recipe a friend kindly gave me:

Ingredients

• 1 litre of fresh cream to be whipped
• 2 two cups of strong coffee
• 2 ounces of sugar

Procedure

Pour the cream in a saucepan and add the coffee. When it starts to boil add the sugar and let it melt stirring. Remove from the fire.

When the mixture is cold pour it into the ice cream maker and proceed as usual to make ice cream.

Once ready, pour the mixture into a sorbet and let it cool to obtain a semifreddo with a creamy consistency.

If you don’t have an ice cream maker at home, like me, don’t despair! I have a recipe to prepare a coffee semifreddo that, although not strictly adherent to tradition because it involves the use of eggs, is incredibly good and the result from the point of view of taste is very close to that of the real Genoese Panera.

It’s the recipe inherited from Margherita, the mother of my best friend during elementary school. I spent whole afternoons at their house and in the freezer a tile of Panera for snack was never missing. I remember that we always ate it sitting on the kitchen table (never on the chairs) because this made us feel older. Margherita also put a handful of chopped walnut kernels in her Panera. Yes, I know, they are not traditional, it is a culinary license, but it is a perfect addition because it gives crunchiness and that thrill of the unexpected in your mouth!

It’s a recipe that brings with it many carefree memories and I’m really happy to share it here.

Where to taste Gelato in Genoa?

If you’re in Genoa, there are still a few places where panera is made with care, following a tradition that hasn’t changed much over time.

Gelateria Profumo,
A historic gelateria in the city center, known for its traditional flavors. Their panera is smooth, balanced, and deeply aromatic.

Cremeria Buonafede,
One of the ancient places selling panera, with great attention to ingredients and texture. Their version is rich, creamy, and very satisfying.

These are just a couple of places to start.

In my Genoa Food Guide, you’ll find a much broader selection of gelaterie, along with practical tips on what to try.

Finally, if the above video made you want to taste Genoa beyond the screen, you can do it for real.

You can join me on a Genoa food tour through historic shops, bakeries, and markets, discovering the city through its flavors, step by step.

Buon appetito!

The post What Is Panera? Genoa’s Coffee Gelato Recipe (+ Video) & Where to Try It appeared first on A Small Kitchen in Genoa.

Focaccia in Genoa is ubiquitous. It is in our life from sunrise to sunset. We soak it in the cappuccino for breakfast (yes, we do, and it’s incredibly good), we give it to our children as a snack at school, at lunch goes hand in hand with bread in the basket, it is offered at parties and finally with a glass of white wine for aperitivo.

In the Middle Ages it was the convivial bread par excellence. It was eaten in church during marriages and then also during funerals (which in the long run annoyed the clergy that ended up forbidding its consumption in church).

In Genoa, focaccia sells like hot-cakes. Everybody buy at least a slice of focaccia together with their daily bread. The bakeries bake it from the very first hours of the morning and continue nonstop until mid-afternoon. Because Genoese focaccia gives its best freshly baked – ephemeral, like all good things, it does not remain fragrant more than one day – and Genoeses know this so they can wait silently in the store even 10 minutes to put their hands on a piece of focaccia sizzling with oil. Then normally less than a half will arrive at home because the rest will be devoured – more or less consciously – along the way, thanks to the fact that the bag, if the focaccia is hot, must remain open otherwise it soften, and you can imagine the scent that goes up straight to the nostrils…

Since every bakery, pizza shop, bar or sciamadda(typical Genoese gastronomy) in Genoa sells Genoese focaccia, how to recognize a good one? If you buy it in a bakery, in the early in the morning and still hot you are already on track.  But you can recognize perfect focaccia because it is thin (maximum 2 cm thick), it is studded with holes (called “œggi”, eyes) with a white and creamy center (the cream is formed by flour, water, salt and oil that are poured on the surface just before the oven), it is golden and bright with oil (focaccia must almost leak oil), it is crispy outside and soft inside, salted on the surface and never sour (which happens if it is kneaded with poor olive oil).

Then there are variations on the theme, such as focaccia with onions (attention it creates dependence… and keeps people away), the one with sage or with rosemary and the one with olives. Then each bakery indulges on topping as they please, so there are focaccia with cherry tomatoes, others with various vegetables and so on.

In my Youtube series “Flavors of Genova” I have made a video about Focaccia: here it is!

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The recipe of Genoese focaccia

If you have the right recipe, you can make a good Genoese focaccia  also at home. It is important to follow the procedure step by step, to respect the various stages of leavening and to use an appropriate pan according to the amount of dough to bake. In the recipe below the ingredients are calculated to obtain a dough to be rolled into a rectangular aluminum pan with low sides measuring 30×40 cm.

But first some practical tips:

• the oil: I prefer not to use extra virgin olive oil (I know it sounds strange) which has a too marked flavor and risks to alter the final taste. It is better to use a good Italian olive oil and then brush the focaccia only once cooked with extra virgin olive oil.
• the holes: you shall made them using the fingertips of the three central fingers of your hand. The pressure must be marked (without breaking the dough, however) and as much as possible parallel to the surface. They must be many and very close to each other.
• leavening: always cover the dough with transparent film during leavening to avoid the surface getting dry.
• brine: the secret of Genoese focaccia is the emulsion of oil, water and salt that you spread abundantly on the surface before the last leavening. Do not worry if it seems a lot, it will evaporate during cooking and allow the holes to remain during cooking.

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Where to eat the best focaccia in Genoa?

Here are some bakeries in the center of Genoa whose Genoese focaccia – on my humble opinion – is worth trying. Then the last word is up to your taste!

In the historic center area:

• Antico forno della Casana (Vico della Casana 17 r)

Mercato Orientale area:

• Panificio da Mario (Via San Vincenzo 61r)

On the way to  Principe train station

• Le Bontà del Grano (piazza del Carmine 11r)

If you want to go deeper, these are just a starting point.
In my Genoa Food Guide, you’ll find a much broader selection of places, along with practical tips on when to go, what to order, and how to avoid the most common mistakes.

Want to go deeper?

If this video made you want to taste Genoa beyond the screen, you can do it for real.

You can join me on a food tour through historic shops, bakeries, and markets, discovering the city through its flavors, step by step.
Or you can start on your own, with my Food Guide: a carefully curated collection of places, stories, and tips to eat in Genoa like someone who truly knows it.

→ Discover the food tour
→ Get the Foodie Guide

Happy focaccia!

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The post Genoese Focaccia: Recipe, Video & Where to Taste It in Genoa appeared first on A Small Kitchen in Genoa.

Updated in 2026 with new recommendations, food guide, and experiences.

The most frequent question I receive when I finish a  Genoa traditional Genoa cooking class or  a Genoa food tour  ,just before saying good bye is: “where can we eat traditional Italian Riviera cuisine tonight? Can you suggest us a good traditional restaurant in Genoa?”

I do love these questions. They mean that, someway, my endless chatters and stories on Genoa culinary customs or the traditional dishes we prepared together indeed made them more interested in Ligurian food culture. They get curious enough that they want to taste more, to explore more, to find confirmation of my tales or just to make their own opinion on our traditional cuisine.

I therefore decided write this short list of the best restaurants in Genoa where to taste real Italian Riviera cooking –  on my humble opinion, of course. This is a selection of restaurants I personally like and go back to — not because they are “the best” in an absolute sense, but because they represent, in different ways, what eating in Genoa can be.

If you’re visiting the city, this list can be a good place to start.

And if you’d like to go a bit deeper — beyond restaurants — I’ve put together a Genoa Food Guide with many more places I love, including bakeries, focaccerie, gelaterie and small local spots that are part of everyday life here.

I divided them into four main groups according to the area of the city where they are located (if you click on the street the relevant google map will open), as I think this will make it easier for people to choose according to their accommodation in town or to their planned journeys. You will find also the average price and the closing day during the week.

I higly suggest, for all these places, to book the table in advance also for checking if the restaurat is actually open as vacations period are approximate.

And if you are curious not just on where to eat but also on what to taste, have a look at my post What to Eat in Genoa: Traditional dishes, street food and Hidden Gems (Complete food guide).

 My selection of traditional restaurants in Genoa

Here are some of my favorite traditional restaurants in Genoa. Think of this as a starting point — a way to begin exploring the city through its food.

Traditional restaurants in Genoa Old Port Area (Porto Antico)

 Antica Osteria di Vico Palla

(Vico Palla 15R www.osteriadi bello, mi vedete non ci sonovicopalla.com

Closing day: Monday at lunch.

Vacations: Christmas and New Year

Price: €25/40).

This restaurant backdates at the 17th century when it was used to serve codfish to the seafarers arriving in the port of Genova (originally located where now stands the Porto Antico leisure area). The atmosphere is that of an ancient mariner tavern: vaulted ceilings made of bricks, simple furniture, menu written on a small chalkboardand varying daily according to the available fresh ingredients. Here you can still taste codfish (“stoccafisso”) cooked in different traditional ways (stewed, fried, in salad or baked) as well as the famous cappon magro (the traditional Ligurian seafood and veggie salad).

Trattoria della Raibetta

(Vico Caprettari 10R,

www.trattoriadellaraibetta.it

Closing day: Monday

Vacations: mid January and from mid July to mid August

Price: € 30/40).

In this historic restaurant (opened in the 18th century) I had one of the best pesto ever. It was seasoning “trenette avvantaggiate”, a traditional fresh pasta made with whole-wheat flour. Here all products are fresh: all pasta is home-made as well as pesto. Traditional dishes in the menu are made both with fish (such as codfish and anchovies) and meat (such as stewed rabbit) as well as with veggies (such as the various savory pies or the colorful minestrone soup).

Traditional restaurants in Genoa historic center/down town

Trattoria Ugo

(Via dei Giustiniani 86R

Closing day: Sunday and Monday.

Vacations: August

Price: € 20/25).

This is an example of old stile trattoria. Located at the base of an historical building the single room is big, with a wood ceiling, a square footage and hundreds of old kitchen tools and coppers hung on the walls. The cuisine is for all intents Genoese and some dishes are in the menu since the opening in the sixties:  such as pansotti al sugo di  noci (traditional ravioli with walnut sauce), minestrone, tripes and buridda (a fish soup).

Sà Pesta

(Via dei Giustiniani 16R,

sapesta.it,

Closing day: Sunday.

Vacations: August

price: €20/25).

Originally this palce was a reseller of mashed salt, a very precious ingredients in the Medieval Ages and of which Genoa had the monopoly all over Europe and the Mediterranean. At the beginning of the 19^th century the place converted into one of the most fascinating trattorias of the city. The place has a vaulted ceiling, the typical Genoese flooring, two big wood ovens, marble counters and wood tables. Here you can taste the real traditional Genoese street food: one of the best farinata (caked chickpea tart) in town as well as focaccia al formaggio (cheese pie),various torte di verdure (veggie savory pies made as tradition rules and slowly cooked in the wood oven) and verdure ripene (stuffed vegetables).

Trattoria da Maria

(Vico Testadoro 14R,

closing day: Sunday

vacations: August, Christmas and New Year

price €10/22).

In Genoa Maria is a reference for the traditional cuisine. It celebrates this year its first century. This was and still is an honest, low cost, popular local restaurant. From this restaurant passed many VIPS and its fame spread beyond the Italian borders. Le Monde and the New York Times mentioned this place. It’s a very easy place. At its table, wrapped with red and white checkered paper tablecloth, you can eat only plates of the traditions, cooked in a familiar way and 100% homemade. From ravioli al tocco (ravioli with meat souse) to soups, from stewed tripes to savory pies.

Traditional restaurants outside Genoa historic center

Il Genovese

(Via Galata 35R,

www.ilgenovese.com,

closing day: Sunday

Vacantions: never

€20/30).

The co-owner of this restaurant, Roberto Panizza, is well known as the best sponsor of Genoa pesto in the world as he is the organizer of the World Pesto Championship and one of the biggest local producers of pesto marked “Rossi”. Pesto here is a guarantee. But not only that. Minestrone, for example, is excellent, as well as zimino di ceci (chard and chickpea soup) and homemade ravioli. As main course you can taste codfish, tripes or meatballs made with Cabannina, a Liguria slow food presidia cow meat. They also offer a good selection of local wines.

Montallegro

(Via Mura delle Chiappe 30R,

www.ristorantemontallegro.it,

closing day: Monday from October to May

Vacantions: never

price: €25/35).

The breathtaking view of the entire city from the terrace of this informal but stylish restaurant is worth the trip. Even better if you get to this historic place (opened in 1913) located on the green and peaceful hills clinging on the city by the old red funicular way, one of the first built in Italy (it is called funicolare Zecca-Righi and you can take it just at the border of historic center, in Piazza della Zecca). Here you can taste traditional Italian Riviera cuisine as well as pizza (more that 20 different seasoning) and farinata (baked chickpea flour tart).

Traditional restaurants in Boccadasse

Trattoria da Osvaldo

(Via della Casa 2,

closing day: Sunday during winter time

Vacantions: 3 weeks in November and 1 week in February

price: € 45/60).

This restaurant is located in the small ancient fisherman village of Boccadasse, just 4 km far from the city center and popular leisure destination both for tourists and for Genoa people. Neat and cozy, with a familiar atmosphere, Osvaldo offers a selection of the most popular Italian Riviera dishes. During summer time tables are placed in the tiny square in front of the door, which is very romantic.

Looking for more places?

These are just a few places to start.

If you want to explore Genoa more deeply through its food, in my Genoa Food Guide you’ll find a much broader and carefully curated selection — over 30 places across the city, including restaurants, focaccerie, gelaterie, bakeries, and local favorites.

→ Get the Genoa Food Guide

Experience Genoa through its food

If you’d like to go beyond choosing a restaurant and really understand how food works in Genoa, the best way is to experience it. Here’s a glimpse of what I mean.

Walking through Genoa, one taste at a time:

A slower way to experience the city:

These experiences are designed to help you see the city differently — through its markets, its small shops, and the people behind the food.

You can join one of my food experiences:

→ Join a Genoa Food Tour
→ Discover my Market day Cooking Classes

Ah! There are also Private experiences available for a more personalized approach!

Eating in Genoa is not just about finding the right restaurant. It’s about learning how to move through the city, how to read a menu, how to recognize quality, and how to connect with a food culture that is still deeply rooted in everyday life.

This is what I try to share — through this blog, my guide, and my experiences.

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The post My best traditional restaurants in Genoa (local picks + food guide & Experiences) appeared first on A Small Kitchen in Genoa.

I have always had a conflictual relationship with farinata, the famous Genoa chickpea tart.

Sincere and dispassionate love when bought  freshly baked, deep hate mixed with discomfort when I prepared it at home.

Yes, I’ve never been able to properly bake a farinata. Too high, too thin, burnt on top, raw at the  base, and vice versa, or “decomposed” into a thousand of greasy bubbles… and so on.

A clear culinary frustration because if you read the recipe it seems the simplest thing in the world: make a batter with water and chickpea flour, let it rest, pour it over a gently greased baking pan and bake in the hot oven.

That’s it, easy isn’t it? So I thought the problem had always been me…. until eventually someone taught me how to do it. 

It’s true that experience always shows, but those with more can guide you along the way, helping you grow in both skill and confidence.

After my tips on how to prepare a proper farinata, you will find a video on how farinata is baked in Genoa old shops.

Tricks to prepare a perfect farinata

Without other preambles (I’ll tell you the story of the farinata at the end of the recipe), here are the tricks to prepare a perfect farinata like the one sold in Genoa downtown alleys:

1. The proportions between the ingredients are fixed and invariable. 75% water, 25% chickpea flour and, on total, 1-0,8% salt and 12-10% oil.
2. The thickness of the chickpea tart is fundamental. It must be between 0.7 and 0.9 cm. Only the right amount of batter inside the pan guarantees that your farinata cooking remains moist underneath, cooked in the center and crispy above. For this reason, to each baking pan corresponds a quantity of batter and, consequently, different doses of ingredients. Here is a summary scheme (for a lighter result, less salty and oily, you can lower the amounts of salt and oil of 10% in the amounts below ) :

1. The perfect pan is round and in copper. Copper is in fact an excellent thermal conductor. The farinata, however, comes out good even in normal trays, even in the disposable one in aluminum!
2. The batter, without lumps, must rest at least 4 hours, better 8, at room temperature. The flour must absorb the water very well. Mix it every 2 hours and remove the foam that eventually forms on top (these are the impurities that the chickpeas release).
3. Salt should be added at the end, just before pouring the batter of your farinata into the pan.
4. No oil in the mixture. The oil – which can also be simple olive oil (yes, I know, the purists of extra virgin olive oil will quiver but the extra virgin olive oil with its taste so decided in cooking is likely to overpower all other flavors) – must only form a protective film inside the pan and cover over and under the batter. For this fundamental step some precautions are necessary: the pan must be already hot before pouring the oil, and then the farinata, inside; the farinata batter must be poured very slowly making it slide along a spoon placed in the center of the pan. In this way it will float over the oil without breaking its surface or mixing with it. The oil will then rise along the edges and cover the batter even on the surface. This will create a sort of “pajam” of oil that wraps the batter.
5. The oven must be very hot. The optimal temperature would be 300°C (570°F) but not all the home ovens reach it. So you set the maximum temperature and bake it in the lower shelf of the oven for 20-25 minutes (the time depends on the size of the pan) or until the farinata has turned golden. Then you Ttrn off the oven and turn on the grill function for 5 minutes to obtain a nice nut-colored crust on the surface.
6. Farinata MUST be eaten warm. This is the biggest advantage in preparing it at home! Once baked, sprinkle with black pepper, wait a minute and then serve!
7. You can season/empower farinata with some toppings before baking: rosemary springs, gorgonzola cheese, small whitebait or – when in season – with finely sliced fresh artichokes, which is my favorite variation!

If you’d like to see how farinata comes together, I’ve filmed the process as part of my Flavors of Genoa series, inside some of the city’s traditional wood-fired “sciamadde“.

Brief history of farinata

Farinata is one of the most representative dishes of Genoese street food. It is an ancient dish so popular that the Genoese give it a legend to remember one of the greatest achievements in the city’s history: the defeat of the Pisans in the Meloria battle (Pisa too was a Maritime Republic and it was a great rival of Genoa for the dominance over Corsica and Sardinia).

The year was 1284. It is said that on the return from the battle the Genoese fleet encountered a storm. The bags of chickpea flour on board the ships overturned and the flour mixed with the sea water that swept the decks. After the storm the sailors, exhausted and hungry, recovered the batter and put it to dry in the sun. The next day they tasted it and discovered its goodness. When they got home, they refined the recipe baking it in wood ovens and, in defiance of the won enemy, they called it “the gold of Pisa”.

A legend, certainly, because farinata dates back to Roman times and similar dishes – based on water and chickpea flour – are also typical of other Mediterranean regions: in Tuscany, in Pisa – in fact – you can eat cecina, in Livorno a cake of chickpeas, in Sardinia the fainé, in Sicily there are the famous panelleand in Provence a tart very similar to farinata and called socca. In short, the chickpea flour over the centuries has fed and conquered so many seafaring peoples!

Where to buy farinata in Genoa

If you’re in Genoa, there are still a few places where farinata is made the traditional way, baked in wood-fired ovens and served fresh from the pan.

Antica sciamadda

Delizie dell’Amico

Sa Pesta

If you’d like to explore Genoa through its food more deeply, there are two ways to do it.

You can join me on a food tour and experience these places with a local perspective, or explore on your own with my Genoa Food Guide — a broader collection of addresses and tips to help you navigate the city through its flavors.

→ Discover the Genoa food tour
→ Get the Genoa Foodie Guide

The post Farinata (Genoese chickpea flatbread): recipe, video and where to eat it in Genoa appeared first on A Small Kitchen in Genoa.

The locals here are very proud not only of their past, full of conquests and sieges, but also of their agricultural products from the mountains (including their notable EVO oil) and their culinary traditions.

In particular, they are very proud of a gigantic vegetable pie that has always been baked in a wood-fired oven directly on the stone slab, without a baking tray, and which was registered in 2007 as De.Co, Denominazione Comunale di Origine, to certify its historical link with the place.

This is the Tortun di Castel Vittorio, a Ligurian vegetable pie, but a bit unusual.

In fact, it is prepared with a single large disc of very thin unleavened dough (instead of many layers), which folded over itself encloses a filling of local zucchinis cut into very small cubes and placed strictly raw in the baking tray (in winter, field herbs are used), mountain potatoes, a handful of rice, and a bit of local cheese (Tuma of the valley, not easy to find outside the area).

The zucchinis that grow in Castel Vittorio are somewhat special because they are very large, light green, sometimes white. Similar to pumpkins, they need to be hollowed out, and the seeds removed before being cut. But the pie turns out great with any type of zucchini, as long as it is seasonal and fresh!

Every year in August, Castel Vittorio hosts the “Sagra del Tortun” with a culinary competition among housewives. Not to be missed! (check the date on the Proloco Facebook profile).

The recipe for Tortun di Castelvittorio

For the perfect success of this recipe, here are some small tips:

• Use only very fresh summer zucchinis, the small, light green, firm ones, maybe with the flower still attached. If you want to use Ligurian zucchinis, you can buy them online and receive them fresh at your home (in Italy and Europe) thanks to the online site Palatifini.it. You can buy both traditional Ligurian zucchinis and trumpet zucchinis!
• Pre-cook the rice very briefly, it will finish cooking inside the dough, absorbing the water released by the vegetables.
• Roll out the dough very thinly, but not too thin. There’s a risk it will burn before the filling is cooked.
• Trust me, there’s no need to blanch anything, the raw zucchinis and potatoes (cut very small) will cook wonderfully inside the dough.
• The Tuma cheese of the valley, unless you are from the far western Liguria, is difficult to find. You can replace it with another soft, lightly aged cheese.

The post Tortun di Castel Vittorio, an out of the ordinary Ligurian zucchini pie. appeared first on A Small Kitchen in Genoa.

Often, during cooking classes, my guests ask how old the pesto recipe is.

In their imagination (and perhaps in that of many Ligurians too), pasta with pesto has always existed on Ligurian tables, perhaps they imagine rustic tables with red and white checked tablecloths where giant plates of steaming trenette al pesto are ready to feed large families.

Each time I amuse myself by debunking this myth, as well as many others that now hover over Italian cuisine.

Surprisingly enough the Genoese basil pesto recipe we know now is not a very old recipe. In the panorama of the many traditional Ligurian and Genoese recipes, we can say that it is a youngster.

If you want to listed to the history of pesto (and discover many other interesting things about this iconic sauce) I was recently interviewed on this subject by UntoldItaly Podcast. You can listen to the episode tapping here.

Otherwise, keep on reading!

A brief history of basil pesto sauce

Truth is that the recipe of the most well known Ligurian green sauce – made with Genovese basil leaves, garlic, pine-nuts, parmesan cheese and EVO oil – is the result of endless, casual, experiments.

It’s a recipe that actually developed over the centuries.

Since middle-ages, a continuous mixing and pounding in the mortar of different ingredients – taking place in humble as well as in noble kitchens –  eventually lead to the magical pattern and there definitely crystalized. We are at the beginning of the ‘900.

The base sauce, the ancestor of pesto, was a sauce made of crushing garlic in the mortar and mixing it with olive oil. A very common seasoning for meat, fish and vegetables on Middle Ages tables. Garlic indeed with its antiseptic properties was normally used to sanitize food.

This is the main reason why pesto without garlic – becoming very popular in the last decade – to me is a nonsense.

Then, little by little, people started adding fresh herbs in the mortar. Liguria is well known for using fresh herbs as a main ingredient in lots of their recipes. So, they started adding in the mortar some fresh herbs picked in the backyard or on the window sill, but not necessarily basil. The oldest written recipes we have about pesto (backdating 1860) provides, indifferently, for parsley, marjoram, sage, basil, even them all together.

As to nuts, probably the first nuts used in this –  let’s call it  – “herby pesto sauce” were walnuts. Probably the Genoese learned to use walnut sauces for seasoning from the Muslims, with whom they had intense trades during Middle Ages. Still nowadays in Middle East cuisine we can find different walnut sauce recipes for seasoning meats.

Then walnuts were replaced by pine-nuts. It’s not easy to say when and why. Actually scrolling the few ancient basil pesto recipes we have, pine-nuts are never mentioned in the pattern of ingredients but for one recipe (in “La Cucina di Strettissimo Magro” from Padre Gaspare delle Piane”), especially written for “sacrifice days”  when animal products consumption was forbidden. And here probably pine-nuts were used in lieu of cheese to give creaminess to the sauce.

There are indeed some area, in the western backcountry of Liguria, where basil pesto still nowadays is made with walnuts instead of pine nuts. So, don’t worry, it’s not a heresy making basil pesto with walnuts: always better good walnuts rather than cheap, tasteless, bad pine-nuts! (but no cashew, please).

Coming to cheeses, the story is even more curious.

Today we primarily use Parmigiano Reggiano, preferably matured, over 24 months.

In the past, in lieu of – or jointly with – Parmigiano Reggiano Genovese, cooks used matured Pecorino cheese from Sardinia (“Fiore Sardo”). This because Sardinia was historically a “colony” of the Genova Marina Republic and most of the pecorino cheese produced in Sardinia used to be shipped to Genova and then from here sold elsewhere in the north of Italy. This cheese, therefore, was commonly available in Genoa markets at reasonable low prices.

Pecorino Sardo though has a spicy, salty, smoky flavor and tend to be overwhelming. This is why when we make pesto nowadays, or we skip it at all, or we use it in a very small percentage. Our palates are less “rude” than those of our ancestors!

For the very same reason (availability) some old recipes call for the Dutch cheese Edam (the one with the red wax skin) in pesto!  It may seem very strange, but again this is because of the historical intense commercial relationships between Genoa and The Netherlands: in Genoa there was a big community of Dutch, importing, consuming and selling their cheese on our markets. It was available and cheep.

I have to mention also that in the Easter villages outside Genova, in Golfo del Tigullio, it’s a tradition to add to basil pesto a tablespoon of prescinseua, our local fresh sour cheese/curd (something in between ricotta and yogurt), to give extra creaminess and some acidity to the sauce.

Finally, extra virgin olive oil has always been – jointly with garlic –  a pillar of the pesto recipe. Some old Ligurian cooks, though, does not disdain a nut of butter in the sauce, to make pasta al pesto even more delicious (just to let you know that this is the local hottest controversial topic when discussing with friends about the best pesto recipe).

In conclusion, the basil pesto recipe “codified” in the last decades probably was invented by chance.

Maybe one morning a home cook, after having crushed that fresh garlic clove in the mortar, looking around in the kitchen decided to put a handful of those shining basil leaves on the window sill, that grated Parmigiano left over from the evening before and those few pine-nuts laying in the jar. A pinch of rock salt, and then she smashed, pounded, crushed rhythmically swinging her hips in the summer breeze. She stared proud at her thin paste in the mortar, she poured a thin string of gold extra-virgin olive oil, stirred gently and WHAM, the magic had happened.

Some more things about pesto you may like to know.

A long time ago  I wrote on the blog  a complete guide for making pesto, with a description in depth of the essential (current) ingredients, my recipe of course (with mortar and with blender), and many tips and tricks to make it at home like a local.  You can read it here.

This year I have added a bunch of new private experiences to my offer. One of these is the “Basil Farm and pesto making experience”.

It’s a one- day visit to the iconic Ligurian basil sea-view greenhouses, with a pesto making experience and a traditional peasant lunch. This is a private experience for groups (min. 6 people). If you are interested, just send me an e-mail!

Finally, if you come to Genoa, I also organize basil pesto making classes as an optional additional experience to my Genoa Food tours.

Want to discover my advice on WHERE to eat or WHERE shop the best pesto in Genoa? Subscribe to my newsletter “Taste of Liguria” for reading the whole post

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Today I take you to a little-known corner of Liguria, which however is inextricably linked to an essential product of Ligurian cuisine: extra virgin olive oil. This place is called Impero Valley.

For Ligurians olive oil is not only a fundamental ingredient of their culinary tradition, let alone a seasoning.

For Ligurians oil is “history”. The cultivation of olive trees in Liguria has shaped the territory, influenced trades, opened communication routes, expired seasons and the rhythms of entire generations.

Impero Valley was the scene of this history and is still witness.

Here and the surrounding areas, today as then, produces in fact most of the extra virgin olive oil of Liguria.

It was the Benedictine monks, around 1000 a.c. to introduce in this area the cultivation of the olive “taggiasca” ( a fruit resistant and of great yield).

It will be an increasingly intensive cultivation that will result in the majestic dry terracing of the territory and that will forever change the landscape of the Ligurian Riviere, especially the western one,  as you discover going around the Impero Valley.

Here the production of olive oil grew exponentially, feeding since the fifteenth century a flourishing European traffic. In the nineteenth century, large local companies were born capable of producing many tons of olive oil and exporting overseas.

Now back to our Impero Valley, what’s it like?

It is a green valley, with gentle mountains, that winds along the Impero river and that from the city of Imperia-Oneglia, West Liguria, leads to Piedmont.  It was an Ancient Via del Sale (“salt rout”) and an important commercial transit area to and from northern Italy, subject of wars of conquest throughout the Middle Ages.

Each mountain in the valley guards and protects, on its summit, a small stone village, an outpost.

The roads to reach these small towns are just curves that rhythmically wind through high dry stone walls, red soil and silver olive groves.

The Impero Valley can be visited by car, motorbike or by bike.

You head north and follow our instincts.  Along the main road, at the bottom of the valley, there are few villages, while the deviations to the right and left to go up to those “at altitude” are many.

Every crossroads is worth it: it pays off with ancient stone houses, numerous baroque churches, flowered fields, breathtaking views, small grocery stores or village shops that have remained untouched by globalization.

The traces of the flourishing commercial past, then, can be found in the ancient oil mills (called “gumbi“), in the wheat mills, in the mule tracks, in the fountains, in the water troughs and in the washhouses scattered here and there through the valley.

Villages to visit and good things to look for.

Impero Valley map. Credits Mialiguria

Pontedassio

It is the first village in the valley you meet on the main road. It is locally well known for two foodie reasons.

The first is that here was born the famous Italian pasta factory Agnesi. Until a few years ago, in the residence of the historic founder, there was the Pasta Museum, then moved from the Vincenzo Agnesi Foundation to Rome, near the Trevi Fountain. Rumors say that the Museum should be reopened in its original place, Let’s hope!

The second reason are the cookies of Pontedassio, a “biscotto della salute” a sweet bread-like cookie,  well known and appreciated throughout the Western Liguria. The historic bakery still exists and prepares them with the traditional recipe since the early ‘900.

Lucinasco

100 souls, 100,000 olive trees. Definitely my favorite village in the area.

The landscape is dominated by suggestive dry stone walls, perfectly preserved, and centuries-old olive trees.  The road winds up to the ancient medieval village, built right along the ridge of the mountain. The extra virgin olive oil produced here is famous all over the world for its finesse and quality and the producers to visit here are not lacking (see below).

Just a walk in the village makes you happy …or lucky: or last summer I came across a string concert inside the village church!

If you want you can also visit the Museum of peasant civilization, where is reproduced an ancient mill driven by animals, and just outside the village, on the shores of a pond surrounded by weeping willows, stands the charming Church of Santo Stefano.

Borgomaro

Continuing north, along the main road, you meet Borgomaro. It is the most important center of the upper Impero Valley, located right along the course of the Impero river, among the olive groves.

The village is quite large, well preserved, lively. There are restaurants and facilities to stay in (see below).

Two are the gastronomic products for which it is famous (always in addition to EVO oil): the San Rocco Bread and the “baxin” round biscuits with a taste of wild fennel. Both can be found (if you are lucky) in the only bakery, in the heart of the country, held by Mrs Bruna.

Among the alleys of the country you might also come across someone playing “balleta” o “palla pungno” (punch ball), an ancient sport, a kind of tennis 3 vs 3 without net or rackets that you play bouncing the ball with your fists.

Aurigo

From Borgomaro a ring connects several villages. One of these is Aurigo which is located in the highest and most exposed to the sun part of the Valley. The historic center tells the medieval past, with towers and bell tower that served as a defensive system of the old castle (there are just ruins of it nowadays).

Aurigo is historically known for figs (hence the other name of the charioteers: “figaléi”) and in particular for the “pan de fighe“, a dessert prepared with fresh figs left to dry in their leaf. Now it’s very rare to find someone who prepares it, but here on youtube I found a beautiful documentary, take a look! I confirm that the figs I pulled from the roadside last time were very sweet!

Conio

Continuing the ring, after a few kilometers, you get to Conio, famous for its beans, the rundin beans, Slow Food presidia together with those of Pigna and Badalucco (I wrote an article on the blog about it, you can find it here).

Just yesterday I received a gift from a friend of mine: the recipe of Zemin, the traditional dish of this village, passed down by her 98 years old great-grandmother living in Conio. I couldn’t try it out in time to share it here today, but I will do it soon (it’s a small treasure)!

Caravonica

The village in the past was located on the ancient road that connected the Valle Impero and the Valle Arroscia and was an important resting place for caravans. Here is famous the buridda, a fish soup based on stockfish (very similar to the traditional Ligurian stockfish stew). They always prepare it for the Sant’Antonio festival in June.

Chiusavecchia

Once an important hub and “shopping center”, today it has few inhabited houses. But it is worth stopping at the ancient Tabaccheria, a historic shop where time has stopped. Inside you will find Orietta, my friend guide of the valley and author of the site MiaLiguria (and the beautiful map you find here). She will certainly give you great advices on what to visit in the area and will do so with great love (a priceless quality).

If you want to know my favorite places to eat, sleep and do experiences, you can read the full article by subscribing to my English newsletter.

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My approach to the Cinque Terre is definitely that of a local.

I must admit (how could one not?) that Cinque Terre are a slice of heaven. A cluster of colorful villages nestled in coves perched above the sea, surrounded by “heroic” vineyards, wild Mediterranean scrub, and the deep blue sea of Liguria.

Each time I see them, I’m still amazed, as it truly encapsulates the essence of Liguria: a land of steep mountains plunging into a tempestuous sea, tamed by men with dry stone walls and small ports hidden among the rocks. They are also a clear reflection of the rugged, stubborn, yet poetic character of the Ligurians.

However, sadly, Cinque Terre today struggle to be appreciated for what they truly are.

Mass tourism has engulfed and is slowly consuming them. For now (I remain optimistic, nothing is irreversible), it’s turning them into an “unreal-ideal,” “Instagrammable” (what an awful adjective) place, sadly soulless. If I say Disneyland?

The small village groceries, once the lifeline for the inhabitants of these isolated hamlets, have disappeared. The artisanal shops and traditional trattorias are gone too. All have given way to souvenir stores with loud t-shirts hanging outside and eateries catering mainly to hordes of tourists in tank tops disembarking from ferries or trains. Even the small fishermen’s houses have been transformed into Airbnb or bed & breakfasts, mostly furnished with IKEA and marketed at exorbitant prices.

If you wander through these small seaside villages at night in the peak of summer, after the last ferry has whisked away the last of the day-trippers, the streets are almost deserted. No elderly folks cooling off in the church square, no children playing ball, no women chatting at their doorsteps. You’ll only encounter tipsy, happy and carefree foreign couples staggering through the dark, silent alleys. The show is over, and the curtain reopens tomorrow morning.

Those working in tourism in the Cinque Terre shouldn’t take offense; this is just a heartfelt declaration of love. The situation is getting out of hand, and we Ligurians, who remember how it used to be, notice the difference. Much more so do the few residents who remain leaving in these villages, who in high season find themselves elbowing through tourists just to get home at lunch time.

So, what’s the best way nowadays to discover and savor these still enchanting Cinque Terre?

Jus one word: outside.

Outside the usual hours, outside the peak season, off the beaten path.

Just a small shift away from the space-time dimension of that “black hole” of mass tourism can let you experience the powerful charm of this corner of Liguria.

Outside the usual hours.

If you want to lose yourself in narrow alleys of stone arches, steep stairs, wooden doors, if you want to be surprised by terraces hanging over the sea, if you want to watch the small fish boats silently sway in the harbors, find a place to stay inside one village of the Cinque Terre (if you’re on a budget, settle for a dimly lit refurbished basement).

In the morning, after breakfast, hop on the first available ferry or train and leave, go visit the beautiful surroundings (Porto Venere, Levanto, Framura, Bonassola), then return in the evening.

Now is your moment: enjoy the sunset with an aperitif, enjoy the quiet, dark streets at night, enjoy a walk along the sea with your phone’s flashlight on so you don’t trip. And above all, enjoy the sunrise: wake up very early and roam the streets while everyone is still asleep, when you can still hear the sound of the sea lapping against the dock, when delivery carts bring fruits and vegetables to restaurants, when the bars are still closed (they open late, get used to it, your first coffee will be a bit delayed).

Outside the peak season.

Consider June, July, August, and September only for off-hours (as mentioned above), off-places (as below), and avoid weekends. May is semi-critical. Always check the holidays in neighboring Countries like France and Germany before leaving.

During this high season, prices are very high, free spots for drinking, eating, going to the beach, parking are scarce, and the number of people around is overwhelming (are you becoming a bit of a misanthrope like me?).

From October to April, the situation is much better. But be careful not to be too radical; in January, you’ll find almost everything closed for holidays. It’s a shame, though, because at the end of January, on the first sunny days, nature begins to bloom again, birds chirp, and it feels like paradise.

Off the beaten path.

Around the well-known “Cinque Terre” (Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, and Monterosso), there are many enchanting places to stop: to admire the landscape, eat, sleep, walk. However, you can only discover them by car or on foot.

The car, however, is not the best way to visit villages (except Corniglia) that are by the sea, as parking there is really scarce and expensive.

For these, there’s the train or the ferry in the beautiful season… and  the hit-and-run tourist knows it well.

It’s a choice, but I recommend visiting the area by car, venturing into the roads that connect the villages from above, taking random detours, doing U-turns to go back, stopping along the road, getting out, and admiring the landscape.

By doing this, for example, I discovered the wonderful villages of Volastra and San Bernardino and the Sanctuaries of Nostra Signora di Soviore and Nostra Signora di Reggio.

If you enjoy walking, then you can truly savor the essence of the Cinque Terre thanks to the numerous trekking paths that cross it. They are cleaning many ancient paths in the last period. But always in good weather and always skipping the most popular ones in the peak season, otherwise, you risk encountering hefty foreign tourists struggling up the trails in high heels or flip-flops (depressing).

These are my general tips for planning a vacation, short or long, in the Cinque Terre area.

If you want to know my favorite places to eat, sleep and do experiences, and to get the recipe of the Monterosso Rice pie you can read the full article by subscribing to my English newsletter.

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In Italian cuisine, extra virgin olive oil is generally used as a condiment or as a base for fried foods. However, there are some regional dishes in which oil plays a really relevant role, becoming one of the main ingredients.

In Liguria, a region known for its abundance of olive oil, among the recipes that pay tribute to our “liquid gold”, there is the famous “Brandacujun”. It is a preparation very similar to mashed potatoes, where potatoes and boiled stockfish are crushed together and dutifully, generously, seasoned with extra virgin olive oil of the highest quality.

The curious name of the recipe probably comes from the Provençal verb “brandare”, which means “shake”, since the essential procedure for mixing fish and potatoes consisted, and still consists if you want to have fun, in grabbing by the handles and vigorously shake the pot in which the ingredients are closed (see video below).

The Brandacujun can be enjoyed as a single dish, perhaps accompanied by a fresh salad, or for a delicious summer aperitif as I propose here: spread on bread croutons with the addition of a local Taggiasca olive!
You can find below the video that I shot in collaboration with the oil mill Novella & Vignolo, a small oil mill in business for more than 150 years in Recco, in the Paradise Gulf with an equally ancient olive just grove overlooking the sea!

Below you can find the recipe of Brandacujun as I prepare it. A couple of tips before leaving you to the recipe:

• Just the fun shaking of the pot may not be enough to mix the ingredients well, especially if it is hot and you lack the strength. You can very well mix vigorously with a wooden spoon. The optimal result is a consistent mash where you find it hard to figure out where the potato ends and the fish begins. Refrain blender.
• Add the oil first before mixing the ingredients, the vigorous “scramble” will facilitate the creaming of the potatoes.
• The other flavors – parsley, crushed garlic and lemon juice – add them before stirring, but Tienine always a little aside to adjust the recipe to your taste: each garlic tastes different, each lemon has a different acidity, each parsley has its own intensity. Taste, fix, try, fix… until your palate tells you it works. Even with salt, put it at the end and adjust it to your taste! Have fun!

Link Love:

Are you looking for fresh and light recipes for a summer aperitif? You can take a look at the recipe of stuffed zucchini flowers baked in the oven, or polpettone: the potato and green beans tart, which can prepared the day before and can be served at room temperature cut in bite cubes. Also eggplant patties, they are not bad!!

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For us Genoese, cheese fritters  represent the delicious destination of a trip out of town, between olive trees and lemons, overlooking the sea.

They are typical of the small village of Megli – a handful of narrow houses around a sanctuary overlooking the Paradiso Gulf. Here, every year on Easter Monday, the focaccette fair is organized.

Megli’s focaccette are prepared with the same ingredients as Recco’s most famous cheese focaccia, but they are fried, and this, you can imagine, makes a certain difference.

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