Hunting for the perfect pesto – Tom Landolfi

Let’s start the journey from Sâ pesta, in via dei Giustiniani, in the historic center of Genoa. We are in a sciamadda, one of those shops that owe their name to the “flame” for cooking porridges, focaccias and panisses, bites of fried chickpea polenta. Antonella, heir to the Benvenuto family who have been running the restaurant since the 1950s, is a shrewd and ironic woman, as brusque as she befits the Genoese. She unrolls a tea towel with the pesto recipe and, while we get comfortable with a spectacular porridge, she says: “Sâ pesta means crushed salt, this was a salt warehouse, which was a monopoly at the time. My grandmother came from Sori to sell the prescinsêua”. A sort of acidic curd that if we didn’t want to challenge the wrath of the Genoese we would call yogurt.

And here is the pesto, which we eat here with the trofiette. Hearty, sincere dish, with the right amount of garlic and a delicate cheese. An excellent start, at a competitive price, 9 euros. How is it done? Antonella does not hold back. Basil: “Naturally Ligurian, from Pra’”. The garlic? “Of Vessalico. It’s red and more delicate.” Cheese? “Only parmesan aged thirty months, we don’t use pecorino, because I follow my father’s recipe”. The pine nut? “From Pisa”. Tradition and folklore want the basil to be pounded with a mortar. But will it still be like this? “Never mind, it’s impossible for a club, we use a whisk. And the basil, first, we wash it with Amuchina”. You are welcome? The covid one? “Yes, it serves to eliminate pesticides”. Green beans and potatoes? (done this way, the pesto is called “advantaged”): “Come on, that’s tourist stuff. The potato is used for the starch, but is used above all with dry pasta, because it has the same cooking time, 13 minutes. Our fresh trofie, on the other hand, is made in three minutes”.

The alleyways of the historic center have changed a lot: “Here there were workers and ladies who sold themselves. All decent people,” he says. “Everything is cleaner now, but there’s also a lot of dealing”. We pay, Antonella doesn’t have the change and we leave an extra euro, it may be a coincidence but we’re in Genoa.

And here we are at Acciughetta. It is managed by a tornado of city catering by the name of Giorgia Losi. She is a very young Genoese who, after working for a few years as a social media manager, gave up everything and opened a restaurant that is an oasis at the end of via Prè. Fabrizio De André does a lot to go down this path but it is also a bit of a Dantesque group and you need to equip yourself. The historic center of Genoa is like this, fascinating and problematic. You can avoid via Prè by arriving from piazza Sant’Elena, or by going to the second branch, in Carignano, from those of Acciughetta, where you can experiment more.

From the Acciughetta you can find trofie al pesto (12 euros), but the specialty is the gnocchi alla romana with pesto (13 euros). They are a small masterpiece of balance. The chefs Matteo Rebora and Simone Vesuviano do not deviate from the fundamentals: garlic from Vessalico, basil from Pra’, Italian pine nuts, while on the cheese there is a mixture of Parmesan and pecorino (Sardinian flower). But why this diktat on the basil of Pra’? “Because it has small leaves,” explains Rebora. “I know you like them big, but small is better, because they become a cream more easily”. Mortar? “Blender. With the foresight to use ice first, to avoid overheating. Otherwise the basil oxidizes and turns brown”.

The first mention of pesto dates back to 1863, in the Genoese cook of Giovanni Battista Ratto and his son Giovanni. The recipe back then – brace yourselves – didn’t have basil but parsley and marjoram. As the expert Paolo Lingua also explains, “in the past, basil was almost absent”. And instead of parmesan and pecorino, there was gouda, the Dutch cheese. And then, yes, there was also the butter, the “cream” of the pesto. So it takes a Japanese chef to revive the disowned traditions. Noriyuki Uchida, after seven years in service at Osteria San Giorgio, has opened his own restaurant at Foce, a fishing village that has become a residential area.

Uchida arrived in Italy with the idea of ​​entering top-level catering: “Then one evening I ate in a starred restaurant and I said to myself: is that all? I walked out and was still hungry. I entered the first restaurant I found and ate a dish at random: lasagna with pesto. Here, I thought, this is what I want to do”. And this is what he does in his Osteria San Pietro. National pine nuts, Sardinian flower aged for 24 months, Anfosso di Imperia oil, the usual Vessalico garlic. Along with trofie and gnocchi, lasagna is the most glorious death of pesto. In Genoa they call them mandilli de sea, lasagnette as thin as a silk handkerchief. And those of Uchida (10 euros) are very soft and delicate. It is here that the nice chef confesses: “I put a knob of butter in it. But small eh, to dilute the taste of garlic a bit. Perhaps, however, it is better not to write it!”.

It remains one last address in our carnet. Il Genovese is the trattoria of Roberto Panizza, inventor, no less, of the world championship of mortar pesto. A warm trattoria, on two floors, just as noisy. We start with a taste of pure pesto, served in a small mortar. It is a ready sauce, also sold in a jar as Pesto Rossi. A little disappointing: some dark reflections and a really excessive flavor of pecorino, as is used in the so-called “maleducated pesto”. But then come the gnocchi, homemade (11 euros). And here everything changes. A sumptuous dish, heavenly softness on which rests a perfectly balanced sauce. You can smell everything: the pine nuts, the garlic, the cheese, the oil. Nobody nudges, everyone contributes to the final success.

But what do you drink with pesto? Hard question. Uchida had recommended a pigato, a citrusy and savory sea breeze. The Acciughetta an impalpable bianchetta or a Santa Caterina green label, phenomenal biodynamic Vermentino, more aggressive. At Genovese, for a change, we tried a red, a very fruity Rossese Altavia “Skip intro”. Does he marry well? Yes and no. And on the other hand Paolo Lingua, author of a precious booklet on Pesto mystery (Il melangolo, 2016), after careful reconstruction concludes that the best combination is with water. Because, he says, “he is self-sufficient, he reigns alone, autonomous and independent, next to a glass of cold water. Very Genoese and understatement”.

In the end we leave without certainties: is it better the pesto of Sa pesta, without pecorino, the Japanese one with a knob of butter, the gourmet one of the Anchovy or the delicious and classic one of the Genoese?