Pesto al Mortaio

Pesto alla genovese is the most famous thing to come out of this city, and we take it very seriously. There's even an annual Pesto World Championship (Campionato Mondiale del Pesto) held in Genova, where home cooks compete to make the best pesto using a marble mortar and wooden pestle.

Real pesto is made with seven ingredients: Genovese basil (DOP — the small-leafed variety grown in Prà, a neighbourhood of Genova), Ligurian extra virgin olive oil, Parmigiano-Reggiano, Pecorino Fiore Sardo, pine nuts, garlic, and coarse salt. That's it. No lemon. No cashews. No blending allowed — only mortar and pestle.

Good pesto is easy to find all over Genova, but two places we love: Il Trofiaio (Piazza Colombo), a fresh-pasta shop where you can also sit and eat trofie al pesto at lunch, and Trattoria Ugo dal 1969, a classic family trattoria in the caruggi that makes it the traditional way. Trofie — the little hand-rolled twists — are the pasta made for pesto, usually cooked with green beans and potato in the same pot.

To take pesto home, buy it fresh from the Mercato Orientale, Genova's great covered market. And if you want to recreate it later, look for Novella (Pastificio Novella, from nearby Sori) — their fresh pesto and pasta are sold in shops and supermarkets across Liguria, and they're the real thing, not the industrial jars.