Anywhere Italy

Signature dish

Italian towns with a dish of their own

Not a regional plate but a dish a single town gave its name to, or made its own. 17 comuni in the catalogue carry one, from Amatrice and its amatriciana to Modica and its cold-worked chocolate. Curated by hand; where a town's signature is uncertain, we leave it blank.

  1. 1.SulmonaConfetti di SulmonaL'Aquila · AbruzzoAt 405 meters in the Valle Peligna, birthplace of Ovid in 43 BC and home of the sugared-almond confetti industry since the 14th century.
  2. 2.MateraPane di MateraMatera · BasilicataCave dwellings carved into limestone since the Paleolithic, called the shame of Italy in the 1950s and made European Capital of Culture in 2019.
  3. 3.Bagnara CalabraTorrone di BagnaraReggio di Calabria · CalabriaA swordfish town on the Costa Viola where boats with lookout masts still hunt the Strait, and the IGP torrone has been made by hand since the eighteenth century.
  4. 4.PizzoTartufo di PizzoVibo Valentia · CalabriaA tuff-cliff town over the Gulf of Sant'Eufemia, where Joachim Murat was shot in 1815 and the tartufo gelato was invented a century later.
  5. 5.CetaraColatura di aliciSalerno · CampaniaThe Amalfi Coast's working tuna and anchovy port, where colatura di alici is still aged in chestnut barrels in the cellars behind the marina.

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  1. 6.AmatriceSpaghetti all'AmatricianaRieti · LazioA 955-meter Apennine town leveled by the 24 August 2016 earthquake, slowly rebuilding the streets that gave amatriciana its name.
  2. 7.GaetaTiella di GaetaLatina · LazioThe promontory port where the Bourbon Kingdom of the Two Sicilies fell in February 1861 and the south of Italy stopped existing as a state.
  3. 8.Monterosso al MareMonterosso al MareAcciughe di MonterossoLa Spezia · LiguriaThe westernmost and largest of the Cinque Terre, where Eugenio Montale spent the childhood summers that became Ossi di seppia in 1925.
  4. 9.ReccoFocaccia di Recco col formaggioGenova · LiguriaA coastal town on the Golfo Paradiso, rebuilt from 90 percent destruction in 1943 and known for IGP cheese focaccia and Pro Recco water polo.
  5. 10.TrioraPane di TrioraImperia · LiguriaThe witches' village at 776 meters in the upper Valle Argentina, where the Inquisition put around 200 women on trial between 1587 and 1589.
  6. 11.BraSalsiccia di BraCuneo · PiedmontA Roero town at 290 meters where Carlo Petrini founded Slow Food in 1986 and the world's first gastronomic university now teaches food systems.
  7. 12.ModicaCioccolato di ModicaRagusa · SicilyA vertical Baroque city in the Hyblean Mountains, rebuilt from the 1693 earthquake and home to a chocolate recipe brought from Aztec Mexico.
  8. 13.Barberino di MugelloTortelli di patate del MugelloFirenze · TuscanyThe Mugello gateway at 272 meters where the Medici family kept its first country villas, with Michelozzo's Cafaggiolo and the artificial Lago di Bilancino below.
  9. 14.LuccaLuccaTordelli lucchesiLucca · TuscanyThe provincial capital ringed by four kilometers of intact sixteenth-century walls, birthplace of Puccini and the only fully walled Italian city of its scale.
  10. 15.Montecatini-TermeMontecatini-TermeCialde di MontecatiniPistoia · TuscanyEleven thermal springs in a Liberty-style park at the foot of the Apennines, one of the Great Spa Towns of Europe inscribed by UNESCO in 2021.
  11. 16.PontremoliTestaroliMassa-Carrara · TuscanyThe capital of Lunigiana at the confluence of the Magra and Verde, holding the prehistoric stele statues and the oldest book prize in Italy.
  12. 17.SienaSienaPanforte di SienaSiena · TuscanyThe medieval rival of Florence at 322 meters on three hills, with a shell-shaped piazza where seventeen contrade race bareback horses twice a year.

We write about towns like these every Sunday, one town a week, with the photo, the food, the festa. Free, from Pietrasanta.

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