Travel Review: Genoa, the capital of pesto

Belfast Telegraph

17-05-2025

'It is the taste of Liguria,' says the Pesto World champion, engineer Mattia Bassi (from Genoa) who won the biennial tournament 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. No one ever uses blenders. To lift the prestigious olive wood and gold trophy, Mattia used his grandmother Rosetta's 100-year-old pestle and mortar and the seven prescribed ingredients: Protected Designation of Origin Genovese basil leaves, aged Parmigiano Reggiano Di Montagna, DOP Fiore Sardo cheese (Pecorino Sardo), 1-Vessalico ( Imperial) garlic cloves, Trapani sea salt and PDO extra-virgin olive oil from the Italian riviera.
The two-tiered 'vertical' city's chief landmarks are the Palazzi dei Rolli/The Palaces of the Scrolls. These hosted the most notable visitors on behalf of the government. 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, 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 area 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.
You can base yourself in Levanto's Parco Argentino Hotel or Genoa's 1897 Belle Epoque Grand Savoie Hotel. Checking into one of the oldest hotels in Italy, you are given an ice cream, and aperitivos on the seventh-floor terraces can be taken in a rooftop jacuzzi.
You'll dine in the panoramic Saligas restaurant headed by talented young chef, Massimiliano Forno whose specialities include octopus salad with potatoes — which his mother always makes for him on his birthday — and cold anchovy bagnum with tomato cream. Also on the menu is basil pate with two tomato ragout, wild herb risotto with red mullet and salted lemon, green tagliatelle with rabbit ragout, three milk coconut cupcake, and lime powder and watermelon tataki dessert, with the local Basanotto basil liqueur, which was voted Best Liquor in The World 2024.
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, which was founded in 1407 and closed in 1805.
Having been captured leading a Venetian ship against the Genova city state in the Battle of Curzola, Marco Polo was imprisoned in the palace. Between 1298 and his release in 1299 he wrote his memoirs, The Travels of Marco Polo, with romance writer Rusticello da Pisa. 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.' It stretches for over 30km, from the Voltri neighbourhood in the west to the fishing village of Nervi in the east, famous for its parks. Camogli and San Fruttuoso Abbey with its seabed Christ of the Abyss are a ferry away.
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 alleyways (the most atmospheric are Vias San Luca, del Campo and Al Ponte Reale) you can't get away from pesto and bunch after bunch of freshly picked basil leaves.
A typical menu in Genoa — as served at Il Genovese which is owned by the organisers of the World Pesto Championship — would be frisceü made with 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.
Says Giovanni Astolfini, the executive chef of the new five-star Capitolo Riviera Hotel in Nervi: 'To make pesto you must use olive oil from one olive variety, the highly valued Taggiasca. And basil which has been granted Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) by the EU. The best basil grows facing the sea.'
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