What to Eat on the Portofino Coast:
A Guide to Ligurian Cuisine

Ligurian food is not well understood outside Italy. The region is narrow — a thin coastal strip compressed between the Apennines and the Ligurian Sea — and its cuisine reflects that constraint: precise, resourceful, intensely flavoured, built on olive oil, herbs, and whatever the sea offers on any given morning. It is not the food of abundance. It is something more interesting.

Understanding what to eat here, and where, and in what order, is one of the genuine pleasures of spending time on the Portofino Coast.

The Essentials

Pesto alla Genovese is where any conversation about Ligurian food must begin — not because it is the most complex dish, but because it is the most misunderstood. The pesto served in the rest of the world is an approximation. The real version is made with Basilico Genovese DOP, a small-leafed basil grown in the hills above Genoa whose flavour is distinctly sweeter and less anise-forward than the varieties found elsewhere. It is combined with Ligurian extra-virgin olive oil, garlic, pine nuts, Parmigiano Reggiano, Pecorino, and coarse sea salt — and ideally ground in a marble mortar, not a blender (the heat of the blade changes the character of the basil).

The traditional pasta for pesto is trofie: short, hand-rolled, slightly twisted strands that hold the sauce in their spirals. Served alla genovese, the dish includes small pieces of boiled potato and fine green beans mixed through the pasta — an addition that strikes visitors as unusual and becomes, after a single meal, entirely logical.

Focaccia Genovese is the bread of this coast. It arrives at breakfast, at mid-morning, at lunch, and as a companion to aperitivo. The authentic version is thin, olive-oil-rich, dimpled, with a crust that is simultaneously crisp and yielding. In the bakeries of Santa Margherita Ligure's Corte neighbourhood, it is produced in the morning hours and sold warm. The versions topped with onion (focaccia con cipolle) or rosemary are equally fine; the plain version, eaten standing up outside the bakery, is one of the simplest and best things to eat on this stretch of coast.

Focaccia di Recco is a different proposition entirely. Recco is a small town immediately north of Camogli, and it has produced this dish long enough that it carries IGP status — the same European geographic protection applied to Modena's balsamic vinegar and Parma's prosciutto. The preparation is two layers of almost translucent dough encasing a filling of stracchino, a soft, slightly tangy fresh cheese. The result is baked in a very hot oven until the top is blistered and golden and the cheese has melted completely into the layers. Manuelina, which has been making it since 1885, is the address in Recco. The journey from Santa Margherita takes fifteen minutes by car; it is worth making.

Farinata is the other essential street food: a flat pancake made from chickpea flour, water, and olive oil, baked in a wood-fired oven in a large copper pan until the surface is lightly charred. It is sold in slices, eaten hot, often with nothing more than black pepper. The flavour is subtle and deeply savoury. In the local dialect it is also called fainâ; in the focaccerie along the coast, it shares the menu with the Genovese focaccia.

Pasta and Secondi

Beyond trofie, Ligurian pasta rewards exploration. Pansotti are large, roughly triangular filled pasta — the filling typically includes wild herbs (a mixture called preboggion), ricotta, and Parmigiano — served with salsa di noci, the walnut cream sauce that is Liguria's other great pasta dressing. The walnut sauce is white, thick, and rich; it is harder to find on summer menus but worth seeking.

Trenette al pesto offers a variant on the trofie — trenette is a flat, slightly wider pasta similar to linguine, and the combination with pesto and potatoes is equally traditional.

From the sea, the local anchovies — acciughe del Mar Ligure — are excellent: small, silver, with a flavour more delicate than tinned versions suggest. They appear fried as antipasto, in pasta sauces, and pressed with olive oil in small jars as a pantry staple. The stuffed version (acciughe ripiene, filled with herbs and capers and fried) is a local preparation worth ordering whenever it appears on a menu.

Ciuppin is the Ligurian fish stew — less elaborate than bouillabaisse but related in spirit, built from whatever the morning's catch offers, with tomato, garlic, and white wine. It is properly a working fisherman's dish; in the restaurants along the Portofino Coast, it appears in elevated versions that retain the original logic.

Where to Eat

Trattoria da Pezzi (Santa Margherita Ligure) has been in operation since 1964. The room is plain, the menu handwritten, and the food as close to home cooking as you will find in a commercial kitchen on this coast. The trofie al pesto is the benchmark.

Osteria Numero 7 (Santa Margherita Ligure) operates off the main tourist trail and draws an almost entirely local clientele. Seasonal and simple; book ahead.

Manuelina (Recco) is the original address for Focaccia di Recco. It has been at the same location, serving the same dish, since the nineteenth century. The restaurant now operates at scale, but the focaccia has not been diluted.

Da Laura (San Fruttuoso) is the one restaurant in San Fruttuoso worth noting — a small garden shaded by lemon trees, directly on the beach, open for lunch during the ferry season. The food is secondary to the setting, but the seafood is genuinely fresh, sourced from what arrives daily.

Capo Nord (between Santa Margherita and Portofino, on the coastal path) offers a more polished version of Ligurian seafood, with a terrace positioned directly above the water. Reserve the better seats in advance.

Wine

Liguria produces wine in small quantities relative to its fame, and most of it stays in the region — which is reason enough to drink it here. The dominant whites are from Vermentino and Pigato grapes: dry, mineral, with a salinity that makes obvious sense alongside the local seafood. The Cinque Terre DOC produces a white (from Bosco, Albarola, and Vermentino) that is light, slightly crisp, and poured freely in the restaurants along the coast.

For something more unusual: Sciacchetrà, also from the Cinque Terre, is a rare passito made from partially dried Cinque Terre grapes. It is sweet without being cloying, amber-coloured, and produced in tiny quantities. A small glass at the end of a lunch, in September, looking at the sea, is among the better uses of a Wednesday afternoon.