Genoa-born chef Ivano Ricchebono appears to be like a Hollywood actor enjoying a chef in a movie. His restaurant The Cook is in a 14th-century palazzo in the old town, and as I step into the eating place I prevent and stare – the overall spot is coated with frescoes. It is wildly romantic. “People get engaged here all the time,” Ivano claims with a smile. Awarded his to start with Michelin star in 2010, he has cooked for Stanley Tucci, and has an global status for excellence. But these days he’s my tour guideline – not to the blossoming fine eating scene but to the reasonably priced (and similarly tasty) fare relished by locals each individual day.
After a necessary prevent on the 19th-century Grand Tour, and regarded as “La Superba”, Genoa centre is entire of amazing architecture that tells of this below-rated port city’s previous as a wealthy and potent republic. Squeezed amongst the sea and the Ligurian Alps, it is just an hour and a fifty percent by quickly teach from Milan, and about the same down to the Cinque Terre. Amid Italians the city is renowned for its culinary riches – nearly absolutely everyone agrees that the pesto and focaccia right here are the most effective in the place (there is even a foccacia competition in Might). Our prepare is to stroll by way of several neighbourhoods and style as quite a few of Genoa’s gastronomic delights as doable.
Ivano does not talk significantly English and my Italian is terrible so I convey along Maria, a friend’s daughter, to translate. Our 1st halt, in the medieval coronary heart of city, is at a tiny gap-in-the-wall cafe, Cremeria Buonafede. This is the most effective place for pànera, a notably dense sweet product invented in the town in the 19th century. Ivano orders a caffè con pànera, an espresso topped with a ridiculous amount of the stuff, dusted with a choice of cinnamon or cocoa powder. I have a semifreddo, a type of pànera which is like gentle, espresso-flavoured ice cream. It feels pretty decadent for 10am, but then the intelligent more mature Italian pair at the bar upcoming to us are breakfasting on maritozzi, brioche buns stuffed with an unreasonable amount of money of product.
We wander off (some of) the calories as we proceed by the tangle of streets and virtually impossibly very small alleys termed vicoli. Streets have poetic names such as Piazza dell’Amor Perfetto (perfect appreciate). Via Giuseppe Garibaldi is lined with palazzos built by the Genoese aristocracy in the course of the Renaissance. “The noble people have been all preventing with every other to make the most lovely palaces,” claims Ivano (they are open to the public on sure times, known as “Rolli days” the subsequent are 17-19 May the freshly reopened Palazzo Rosso is now a museum, open up Tues-Solar, €9).
We head west towards the port. Genoa frequently reminds you it is a position in which serious people today stay, not a picture-postcard museum of the previous. At Piazza San Giorgio, on the boundary in between the aged town and the seafront, we stop at Friggitoria San Giorgio, which sells bright yellow cones of fried fish to take absent. The fish arrives fresh off the boats at 7am each individual working day, and it’s no everyday variety: there are anchovies fried in chickpea flour calamari and octopus to be eaten on a bench overlooking the sea. They haven’t started off frying when we get there, so I take Ivano’s word for the high quality of the food, and we hold going for walks.
Additional along the street, beneath the arches, is the retro shopfront of Gran Ristoro, a excellent place to choose up a panino. An massive assortment of hyperlocal ingredients sit in the window alongside food items from other Italian locations. Ivano points out his go-to: cima alla genovese, sluggish-cooked breast of veal stuffed with greens and eggs and lower into slices aged pecorino cheese and salsa verde, manufactured with parsley, garlic and olives. As we walk on, we move Pescheria da Simone, the stall where by Ivano sources all the fish for his dining places. “It’s the best,” he suggests.
But possibly more than nearly anything, Genoa is regarded in Italy for pesto. There’s a little something exclusive about the basil crops that improve in the hills of Liguria: they have lesser leaves and a extra sensitive flavour. I check with Ivano where we need to go to check out some. “I make the very best pesto!” he asserts with terrific passion, but he also recommends Osteria da Pippo, in the village of Fontanegli, 50 percent an hour away in the hills to the north. Tubs of readymade new pesto can be acquired from delis, and from the lined marketplace, see underneath. Ordinarily, it’s served with tiny twisted pasta known as trofie.
We carry on on to the centre of Genoa, past the strikingly monochrome San Lorenzo Cathedral, and up to central Piazza de Ferrari, then together the most important searching street, Through XX Settembre, in direction of the historic food stuff industry, Mercato Orientale Genova (acknowledged as MOG). As we walk I keep stopping to admire the city’s grandeur. Proof of its rich banking heritage is everywhere you go – the structures are ornate, the fountains magnificent, the streets colonnaded, and under my toes there are orange mosaics, depicting waves, bouquets and odd sea creatures in intricate repeating patterns.
We convert remaining into the MOG and instantly there’s colour – and people – everywhere. “Here you can uncover nearly anything you want: meat, fish, greens, every solitary spice you can feel of,” Ivano says, guiding me toward Rela, a single of the oldest vegetable stalls. We admire sculptural artichokes dark green zucchini, every single with a fragile orange flower and spices that would rival a Moroccan souk. A bizarre black vegetable that appears a bit like a manky carrot catches my focus: it’s scorzonera, or salsify. Ivano tells me it is a person of the ingredients in cappon magro, a traditional Xmas Eve salad of seafood and greens.
At tables in the light-crammed central atrium, people today are tucking into street meals. Ivano steers me to Laboratorio Gastronomico, which does sandwiches, pizza and a lot of fried things. My favourites are latte dolce (thick egg custard slash into squares and deep-fried) and stuffed zucchini flowers, but the fried ravioli really feel like an indulgence also significantly. Other specialities are torta pasqualina, a flaky pastry pie filled with egg, spinach and ricotta, and farinata, the chickpea pancake well known in Genoa and made in huge, flat pans.
Upcoming, Ivano indicates sampling some regional wines from La Vineria, a wine shop across the atrium. I’m taken with a refreshing, light-weight glowing Ligurian vermentino, significantly nicer than prosecco.
No food stuff tour of Genoa would be full without making an attempt some focaccia. Typically, when they are not scoffing pànera, Genovesi take in focaccia for breakfast, dipping it into their morning cappuccino. At Panificio Mario, in the vicinity of Brignole station, the bread arrives in 4 types: normale (salt), onion, cheese and sage. It’s hauled out in large slender slabs, hot from the oven. Ivano chooses onion and I have the uncomplicated salt a person, which tastes amazingly sensitive, nevertheless, unsurprisingly supplied the working day we have had, I can not complete my enormous piece.
Enchanted Islands: Travels through Fantasy & Magic, Adore & Reduction by Laura Coffey will be printed on 2 May perhaps by Summersdale. To get a copy for £14.95 go to guardianbookshop.com