The secret to making perfect pesto is singing an aria while you pulverize your basil.
“Quello ch’o l’ha inventôu, dovievan fälo santo.
Capio, forest? Cosci se fa o pesto!”
(“The person who invented it should become a saint. Understand, stranger? This is how you make pesto!”)
The lyrics and Ligurian dialect of the official pesto anthem are easy to learn. However, mastering the revered Italian culinary art is a long, arduous and often painful one. Be prepared for some tough, crushing love when you visit Genoa – the city of Columbus, palaces, polo and pesto.
Swinging his head from side to side, the reigning World Pesto Champion looked down at my bowl, shook his head dolefully and delivered his judgment. “This is not pesto. It’s sludge”.
He winced as he took his tasting spoon away from his mouth, “Outside of Italy, I think you call this mush”.
“Claggy”, I corrected him. “Or a write-off. Americans have a word for it. Glop”.
“What is glop?” he asked.
“Not gourmet”, I answered. Mattia uh-uhed with a sad, assenting nod.
The St George Cross will always flutter over the Doge’s Palace in Genoa. Because it has been used by the capital of Liguria since the tenth century. Reputedly, Richard the Lionheart commandeered it and brought it back to England after the Third Crusade. England stopped payments for its use in 1771. The flag will always fly proudly over the city. But not because an Englishman will ever win the World Pesto Championships.
For centuries, non-Italian man and pesto have been sworn enemies. Put a non-Italian in the same room as some supermarket garlic, cheap olive oil, pine kernels and window-sill basil and you have the basic ingredients of a sure-fire culinary catastrophe. As well as the recipe for personal humiliation. Real pesto-making is an art form. Which no foreigner has so far managed to master. Last year’s title was won by 56-year-old naval engineer, Mattia Bassi from Acquasanta near Genoa. He used his grandmother’s pestle and mortar and the seven prescribed ingredients to lift the coveted olive wood and gold-wrapped trophy. No non-Italian has ever won the World Pesto crown.
Roberto Panizza owns Il Genovese Restaurant on the city’s Via Galata. His family first opened a candied almonds shop in 1947. He is the man behind the biennial World Pesto Championships, held in the Salona del Maggior Consiglio Palazzo Ducale. The first was staged in 2006. The next will be in March 2026.
The Romans made a ‘moretum’ paste. The Mediterraneans of the Middle Ages made a garlic and walnut mash (‘agliata’). Sicilian red pesto, considered sacrilege by Ligurians, is made with tomatoes and almonds. Calabrians use bell peppers. But there’s only one place to learn to be truly green-fingered and that’s Genovesa – ‘Superba’ – ‘The Proud One’.
“Pesto is the true taste of Liguria,” Roberto told me when we met over lunch and an impromptu pesto lesson at Il Genevosa. “Originally it was made with Dutch Gouda cheese, basil, parsley and marjoram. Each contestant has forty minutes to make their pesto. They are given four bunches of basil, some Sicilian sea salt, Fiora Sardinian cheese, 30g of pine nuts, Parmesan cheese and 80cc of DOC Italian Riveria extra virgin olive oil”.
“Grandmother Rosetta’s secret was to first crush the garlic and pine nuts together, then set them aside. It’s all in sequence”, Mattia the opesto maestro told me, “To make the best pesto you must use olive oil from one olive variety, the highly valued Taggiasca. As well as Tappani sea salt. And basil which has been granted Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) by the EU. The best basil grows facing the sea. A marble mortar makes all the difference. As does Vesssalico garlic which grows in the Arroscia Valley near Liguria’s only ski resort, Monesi.
“Ligurian Pigato wine is a good accompaniment. As is Sciacchetra Cinque terre fortified wine made with Bosco, Albarola and Verminto grapes”.
At the event, between tastings, the thirty judges refresh their palates with apples slices. Last year there were 100 competitors.
Mattia looked at my attempt as it was taken away. The waitress had placed a serviette over it as a mark of embarrassment rather than respect. “With a bit of practice, you can still qualify for next year’s championships,” he said, consolingly. “Keep singing the Pesto song. It will help you concentrate and keep focussed”.
Genoa is a two-level city – lifts, two funiculars and a cogwheel train connect ground-area neighbourhoods with upper areas – the most famous being the Spianatadi Castelletto viewpoint. But inside and outside the Barbarossa walls, down the ‘cuestas’ and ‘caruggi’ alleyways (the most atmospheric are Vias San Luca, del Campo and Al Ponte Reale) you can’t get away from pesto and freshly-picked basil leaves.
You must eat your way around the city – taste its ‘friggitorie’ fried arancini couscous, Ibaccalà cod fritters, ‘farinta’ chickpea crepes, focaccia bread, ‘gallette del marinaio’ (baked twice ‘sailor’s crackers’), ‘prescinsêua’ local curd cheese, ‘torta pasqualina’ (Swiss chard and egg pie), ‘scorfano in carpione’ (marinated redfish), and ‘acciughe’ or ‘pan du ma’ – the bread of the sea – anchovies, abd trofie ‘mandilli de sæa’ ( silk handkerchiefs) pasta.
A typical menu in Genoa – as served at Il Genovese – would be frisceü made with ancient wheat flour and fizzy water, fried tripe, gattafin fried ravioli from Levanto, ravioli with tuccu meat sauce and pansotti (stuffed pasta) with walnut sauce. As well as stockfish, meat balls and rabbit. Pesto is ever-present.
It is very nearly illegal not to have pesto in Genoa.
The city’s chief landmarks are the Palazzi dei Rolli/The Palaces of the Scrolls. These hosted on behalf of the Government the most notable visitors. Mainly bankers. Later, the palaces were used by those on the Grand Tour. Today, Palazzi dei Rolli is the collective name for the most prestigious palaces of the historical centre, especially along the so-called Strade Nuove, the ‘New Streets’ built by the Genoese aristocracy at the peak of Genoa’s economic power in the 16th and 17th century (Via Giuseppe Garibaldi, formerly Strada Nuova or Via Aurea, Via Cairoli, formerly Strada Nuovissima, and via Balbi, now the home of the University of Genoa).
The main street Via xx Settembre is named after the day in 1870 when Rome was re-captured from papal ‘authorities’. Other landmarks include Albertis castle, the 1353, 172 step Lanterna lighthouse, San Lorenzo cathedral with its stone lions, sculpted puppy and unexploded World War II ‘English’ grenade, the monumental fountain of Piazza de Ferrari, the new Museum of Italian Immigration and the pastel-coloured houses of ancient seaside district and mariners’ village of Boccadasse (‘the mouth of the donkey’).
The Ligurian around Genoa Riviera comprises 21 miles of coastline with villages like Bogliasco, Portofino, Lerici and the Cinque Terre with its recently re-opened Via Dell’Amore (Path of Love), a paved walk between Riomaggiore and Manarola, one of four sections of the Azzuro Blue Path. Although connected by regular trains, the ‘Five Lands’ fishing villages are best visited by boat. They get very, very busy in summer. The coastal service from Levanto takes you down to La Spezia, Portovenere, the Gulf of Poets where Shelley drowned and the UNESCO islands of Palmeria, Tino and Tinetto.
The Basilica of Santa Maria Assunta on the hill of Carignano is visible from almost every part of the city. More modern sights are the ‘Biscione’ and ‘Le Lavatrici’ (the washing machines) housing complexes, the Aquarium and Museum of the Sea, architect Renzo Piano’s Sphere (‘The Bubble’ or ‘The Ball’) and the pencil-shaped Matitone skyscraper. Genoa has many parts, each with its own soul.
Columbus’s House, where he reputedly lived as a child, is an 18th-century reconstruction of the original which was destroyed by the French naval bombing of 1684. In the Porto Antico, the Palazzo di San Georgio was once the headquarters of the Bank of Saint George, founded in 1407 and closing in 1805.
Having been captured leading a Venetian ship gains the Genova city state in the Battle Of Curzola, Marco Polo was imprisoned in the palace between 1298 and his release in 1299, with romance writer Rusticello da Pisa, he wrote his memoirs, The Travels of Marco Polo. Also called ‘The Description of the World’, ‘The Book of the Marvels of the World’ and, after its initial medieval reception ‘A Million Lies’.
It is now the home of the Port System Authority. A mosaic of Marco Polo is displayed in the Palazzo Doria-Tursie on Via Giuseppe Garibaldi, which since 1848 has been the city’s City Hall.
Henry James described Genoa as ‘the most winding and incoherent of cities”. No one, of course, is allowed to leave without being offered a top tip as to make your own pesto.
Roberto left me with one: “Never use a food processor. That’s sacrilege. And immediate disqualification at the championship”.
The current pesto world champion left me with another. “Never overheat basil. That’s a crime in Liguria. A major insult to a cultural asset”.
Next Steps
To book a city break to Genoa, call Silver Travel Advisor on 0800 412 5678.
