Genoa: Perfect Pesto and the Capitolo Riviera Hotel – Travel Review

By Stuart Abraham, January 2025
Looking mournfully down at the plate, Signor Panizza served up some traditional tough love, Genovese-style. “You’re not from Liguria, are you?”
It was his polite way of saying I had belittled the local Trapani sea salt and demeaned the cultural heritage of the once-noble maritime republic.
I was crushed rather than gutted. It was a knee in the pine nuts. Incidentally, the name Genoa is thought to come from the Latin for knee.
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 city’s biennial World Pesto Championships, held in the Salone del Maggior Consiglio at Palazzo Ducale. The first was staged in 2006, and the next will be in March 2026.
“Prescribed ingredients”
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 Genova – “Superba” – “The Proud One.”
This year’s title was won by 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 trophy.
“Pesto is the true taste of Liguria,” he told me when we met over a lot of pesto at Il Genovese. “Grandmother Rosetta’s secret was to first crush the garlic and pine nuts together, then set them aside. It’s all in the sequence.” He used her 100-year-old pestle and mortar to win the prestigious culinary contest.
“Ligurian Pigato wine is a good accompaniment, as is Sciacchetrà Cinque Terre fortified wine, made with Bosco, Albarola, and Vermentino grapes.”
Between tastings, the judges refresh their palates with apple slices. This year, there were 100 competitors. They had 40 minutes to make their pesto.
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. The world champion’s English was good enough for him to admit, “I don’t know the word for it!”
“Glop,” I offered. “Sludge.”
Genoa is the city of Columbus, palaces, Polo (Marco), and pesto. It also claims to have invented fustian, the fabric that evolved into jeans. The two-tiered “vertical” city’s chief landmarks include the Palazzi dei Rolli (The Palaces of the Scrolls).
“Divulge the secret”
You can base yourself in Genoa’s 1897 Belle Époque Grand Hotel Savoia. Upon checking in, you’re given an ice cream, and aperitivo on the seventh-floor terrace can be enjoyed in a rooftop jacuzzi. You dine in the panoramic Salgà restaurant, headed by talented young chef Massimiliano Forno. I asked him to divulge the secret of his pesto.
“The secret to any good preparation is the raw materials and knowing how to choose them,” he said. “But if you mean a secret to preparation, the most useful tip is to try not to overheat the basil.”
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.
If you’re seeking “quiet luxury” near Naples, the new Capitolo Riviera is a member of the prestigious Small Luxury Hotels of the World. Twelve kilometres from the city centre and 18 from the airport, it calls itself “a hotel within a park.” Its Botanico restaurant already has a reputation as one of the best in the city.
“Inherited”
Its Executive Chef, Genoa-born Giovanni Astolfoni, explained: “Brandacujùn is a traditional dish from western Liguria. It’s made with a combination of stockfish (usually dried cod), potatoes, olive oil, garlic, pine nuts, parsley, and seasonings such as salt and black pepper. The combination is mashed and mixed until smooth and creamy. Brandacujùn is typically served as an appetiser and enjoyed smeared on crusty bread that’s been rubbed with garlic.”
Other dishes on the Botanico menu include kingfish tartare, Santa Margherita prawns, risotto with chinotto citrus fruit from Savona, and salted cod with Smitance sauce. San Stè cheese is made from unpasteurised whole milk, principally from Bruno-Alpina or Cabannina cattle, and coagulated with veal rennet.
Astolfoni continued: “Anchovy pie is a very traditional Ligurian recipe. The same goes for eel and pigeon.” No one is allowed to leave without tasting the house pesto.
“I inherited my recipe from my first chef de partie. It’s 20 years old. Basil oxidises easily. For a brighter and greener pesto, you should reduce this process as much as you can. Lower temperatures and sharper blades help with that. And a blender – though that disqualifies me from competing in the world championships!
“Beautiful promenades”
“To make the best pesto, you must use olive oil from a single olive variety, the highly valued Taggiasca. And basil that has been granted Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) by the EU. The best basil grows facing the sea.”
Lifts, two funiculars, and a cogwheel train connect ground-level neighbourhoods with upper areas – the most famous being the Spianata di 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 escape pesto and bunch after bunch of freshly picked basil leaves.
There’s also the smell of “friggitorie” fried arancini couscous, baccalà cod fritters, “farinata” chickpea crepes, focaccia bread, tripe specialities, “gallette del marinaio” (baked twice “sailor’s crackers”), “prescinseua” local curd cheese, “torta pasqualina” (Swiss chard and egg pie), “scorfano in carpione” (marinated redfish), “acciughe” or “pan du ma” – the bread of the sea – anchovies, spongy testaroli, and trofie “mandilli de sæa” (silk handkerchiefs) pasta.
A typical menu in Genoa – as served at Il Genovese – includes 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, meatballs, and rabbit. Pesto is ever-present. It is nearly illegal not to have pesto in Genoa and its classy “quartieri.”
“Marble pestle”
Nervi is famous for its Passeggiata Anita Garibaldi clifftop walkway, considered one of Italy‘s “most beautiful promenades,” and the 22-acre Parchi di Nervi, created from the gardens of the Villa Grimaldi, Villa Gropallo, and Villa Serra.
Garlic sauce aromatised by basil sounds easy, but it’s not. It’s an art for which you must suffer. “Pesto Wrist” is a mild arthritic condition brought on by excessive and often irritable use of a marble pestle. “Pine Nut Mouth” is something no amount of gelato – not even the local Gorgonzola cheese ice cream – can quickly cure.
The St George’s Cross will always flutter over the Doge’s Palace in Genoa because it has been used by the capital of Liguria since the 10th 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.
Useful links:
Liguria Tourism www.lamialiguria.it
Contact PestoChampionship@rossie1947.it
www.capitoloriviera.com
www.grandhotelsavoiagenova.it
www.ilgenovese.com
easyjet.com