A TAVOLA: Cities That Know How to Eat & Drink
GENOA
Where the Hills Meet the Sea — and Somebody Brought Focaccia
Genoa is squeezed between steep green hills and the Ligurian Sea, and its food tastes exactly like you'd expect from a city with one foot in each.
Basil. Olive oil. Garlic. Pine nuts. Chickpeas. Anchovies. Fresh fish. Pasta. Herbs growing on terraced hillsides above the water.
This isn't the heavy cooking of inland northern Italy. Genoese food is brighter, greener and surprisingly frugal — the cooking of sailors, merchants and families who learned to make something extraordinary from whatever the land and sea gave them.
And somehow, a city famous for being careful with money became extremely generous at the table.
1. Pesto Wasn't Always Pesto
Genoa's most famous contribution to the world begins with a handful of basil.
Basil arrived in Europe centuries ago, but its culinary use in Liguria became established much later. The pesto we recognize today emerged during the 19th century, building on much older traditions of crushed herb and garlic sauces.
Traditionally, it isn't blended.
It's worked in a marble mortar with a wooden pestle — basil, garlic, pine nuts, Parmigiano, pecorino and Ligurian olive oil slowly becoming something creamy, fragrant and intensely green.
And that mortar matters.
A machine can make pesto in seconds.
A Genoese grandmother would probably argue that's exactly the problem.
2. Trofie al Pesto
Fresh pesto smells like someone crushed an entire Ligurian hillside into a bowl.
Sweet basil first. Then garlic. Then the richness of cheese, pine nuts and fruity olive oil. Toss it with trofie — those little hand-twisted pieces of pasta — and the pesto settles into every ridge and curl.
Traditionally, potatoes and green beans can join the pasta in the pot, turning a handful of inexpensive ingredients into something surprisingly luxurious.
Nothing is really trying to be the star.
That's what makes it work.
The pasta carries the pesto. The potatoes soften everything. The beans bring freshness. The cheese adds salt.
And the basil perfumes the whole table before you've even taken a bite.
3. Focaccia Genovese
Then there's focaccia.
Or, as you'll hear around Genoa, fugassa.
Walk past a bakery in the morning and the smell gets you first: warm bread, olive oil and salt.
Proper focaccia Genovese is thin rather than towering, with a lightly crisp bottom and soft interior marked by little pools of olive oil across its dimpled surface. You'll find versions with onion, rosemary and other toppings, but the plain version barely needs anything at all.
And Genoese people don't reserve it for dinner.
Focaccia can appear at breakfast. With coffee. Yes, really.
Later it comes back beside wine at aperitivo.
Which means Genoa has essentially discovered a socially acceptable way to eat focaccia all day.
Hard to argue with that.
4. Coronata & Corochinato
The hills immediately around Genoa produce something increasingly rare in a major European city: wine grown within the city's own boundaries.
One particularly local expression is Val Polcevera Coronata, a dry white traditionally made from grapes including Bianchetta Genovese, Vermentino and Albarola on the hills west of central Genoa. It's fresh, delicate and exactly the sort of wine that wants seafood, pesto or a warm piece of focaccia beside it.
But Genoa's drinking culture gets even more interesting at aperitivo.
Meet Corochinato.
Created in 1886, it's a Genoese aromatized wine infused with herbs and bark, including bitter botanicals such as gentian and wormwood. Locals also know it affectionately as l'Asinello — the little donkey — after the animal on its label.
Serve it cold with lemon.
Put some focaccia beside it.
Then sit down.
That's essentially Genoese aperitivo.
And frankly, a bitter Italian aperitivo accompanied by bread soaked in olive oil sounds suspiciously like something we would invent at Corso if Genoa hadn't beaten us to it
by 140 years.
5. Why Bar Corso Loves Genoa
Genoa understands something we love at Bar Corso:
the best food often begins with restraint.
Great olive oil. Beautiful herbs. Fresh seafood. Good cheese. Handmade pasta.
Bread warm from the oven.
You don't need to bury ingredients when the ingredients are worth tasting.
But there's another part of Genoa that feels very Corso.
Aperitivo isn't simply a drink.
It's the moment when the day changes gears.
A glass of something cold and slightly bitter arrives. There's focaccia on the table. Maybe anchovies. Maybe a little fried chickpea panissa. Someone orders another round. Dinner hasn't technically started, but nobody particularly cares. Genoa's aperitivo tables commonly fill with exactly these sorts of little dishes.
That's the kind of Italian hospitality we love. Not formal. Not rushed.
Not particularly int
erested in whether you're having a drink, an appetizer or dinner.
You're at the table.
That's enough.
At Corso, we approach things much the same way: start with something bitter, put a few plates in the middle, open some wine and see where the evening goes.
Genoa just adds the sea breeze.
We're working on that.
