Rome is named the best food destination in the world for 2023. One of three Italian cities in the top ten list. We drill down to consider whether all roads read to Rome if you want to hit Italy’s top-tier foodie destinations.
Question: Where is the best food in Italy?
Pizza and pasta may define Italian cuisine. Their versatility – both tolerate the most diverse ingredients – accounts in part for their popularity beyond Italy’s shores, and their adaptability. New York or Chicago pizza…?
But we are a country with a hundred cuisines and thousands of recipes. Provincial loyalties account for a huge variety of gastronomic traditions across the country. Taste is a product of geography and climate (and history). Dishes are shaped by the seasonality of produce. Accordingly taste changes with location (and over time).
As a nation, generally, Italians do not tolerate bad food. (A suspicion of unknown ingredients, tastes and textures, and a stubborn sense of pride, perhaps accounts for an unwillingness to integrate foreign cuisine into Italian culture. Even in Milan and Rome it is difficult to find good Chinese, Indian or Mexican restaurants serving authentic regional cuisine from their countries. Finding a great burger anywhere in Italy can be challenging).
Answer
It is by repute that certain parts of Italy are said to be the best foodie destinations. The reality is that wherever you find yourself in Italy, you will eat well.
You don’t have to visit Puglia to find the best burrata. They have it in Emilia-Romagna as well. Just as you will find quality prosciutto here in Puglia. But here you will also find regional specialities like capocollo di Martina Franca. Just as you will wherever you are in Italy.
Spaghetti carbonara and cacio e pepe are dishes we would not miss out on when in Rome. And in Naples we would eat some of the best pizza. But chefs, home cooks and talent travel. You don’t have to go to these destinations to eat them. Puglia has two of Italy’s top 50 pizzerie for example. And based on our visits Puglia’s best pizza does not disappoint.
We might not visit Trentino or Umbria for their seafood, but here in Puglia – we have the longest coastline of Italy’s mainland regions – we wouldn’t dream of missing out.
#EatPuglia
The Puglia region is Italy’s biggest producer of olive oil. Around 40% of Italian olive oil comes from Puglia. We are Italy’s 2nd largest wine producing region, known for rich, full bodied reds. And we gave the world burrata…
Puglia’s tradition of la cucina povera (“peasant food”) serves up simple but inventive dishes using seasonal, locally produced, fresh and flavorful ingredients. Most dishes use only a few ingredients and very little goes to waste. Humble and frugal, the end result is much more than the sum of its ingredients.
We may not have made it onto the list of ‘the best food destinations in the world’. In fact Puglia was unlikely to: the list ranks destinations based on the quantity and quality of TripAdvisor reviews over the last 12 months. So the larger, busier, traditional destinations have an advantage.
But if you know, you know. Puglia’s cuisine is a stand-out part of any vacation here. It’s part of Puglia’s draw. Orecchiette pasta, polpette, bombette pugliesi, frittura are some of Puglia’s must eat dishes.
We also are proud of one dish that is little known outside Puglia. Spicy, charred and crunchy, the pasta Stanley Tucci was ‘shocked’ he’d never seen before. Bari’s spaghetti all’assassina.
“Honestly, I’ve never seen anything like that before,” Tucci said during an episode of “Searching for Italy.” “I love that. And I’ve been around, too.”
