Italy

🇮🇹Italy

Minestra di farro

In Italy, Minestra di farro is a hearty farro soup with beans, tomato, onion, and herbs.

🇮🇹Tuscany, Italy

Minestra di pane

In Tuscany, Minestra di pane is a bread soup with stale bread, kale, beans, tomato, and olive oil.

🇮🇹Abruzzo, Italy

Minestra di sedani

In Abruzzo, Minestra di sedani is a soup of sedani pasta, vegetables, and light broth served hot.

🇮🇹Basilicata, Italy

Minestra spersa

In Basilicata, Minestra spersa is a rustic soup of irregular egg-dough pieces simmered in savoury broth.

🇮🇹Rome, Italy

Minestra spezzata

In Rome, Minestra spezzata is a soup of broken pasta pieces simmered in broth with egg and cheese.

🇮🇹Italy

Minestra sporca

In Brescia, Minestra sporca is a dark vegetable and bread soup enriched with beans and local greens.

🇮🇹Italy

Minestrone

A thick seasonal vegetable soup of beans, carrots, celery, onion, tomato, and often pasta or rice. Every region and household has its own version.

🇮🇹Milan, Italy

Mondeghili

Milanese meatballs made from leftover boiled meat, mortadella, and liver, breaded and fried. A recycled dish of Milanese tradition.

🇮🇹Abruzzo, Italy

Montepulciano d'Abruzzo

Abruzzo DOC red.

🇮🇹Bologna, Italy

Mortadella Bolognese

Bologna's silky emulsified pork sausage studded with pistachios, lightly scented with myrtle berry. The original 'baloney'.

🇮🇹Lombardy, Italy

Mostarda di Mantova

Mantuan fruit mostarda—apples, pears, quince—candied in a sharp mustard syrup. Served with boiled meats and cheeses.

🇮🇹Italy

Mozzarella

Stretched-curd cow's milk cheese (fior di latte), softer and milder than buffalo mozzarella. The pizza cheese and a Caprese staple.

🇮🇹Campania, Italy

Mozzarella di Bufala Campana

PDO mozzarella from 100% water buffalo milk in Campania, Lazio, Apulia, and Molise. Softer, tangier, and richer than cow's milk mozzarella.

🇮🇹Campania, Italy

Mozzarella in carrozza

Mozzarella in carrozza is a named Italian sandwich from Campania, made as a distinctive flour-based or filled form with the ingredients and cooking finish associated with that local tradition.

🇮🇹Naples, Italy

Mozzarella milanese

Mozzarella milanese is Naples' fried, breaded mozzarella: slices or pieces are coated in crumbs and fried until the shell is crisp while the cheese melts inside.

🇮🇹Florence, Italy

Negroni

White Negroni

Florentine cocktail of equal parts gin, Campari, and sweet vermouth, served over ice with an orange slice. Born in Florence's Caffè Casoni.

🇮🇹Italy

Olio Extravergine di Oliva

Italian extra-virgin olive oil, the foundation of Mediterranean cooking. The best is cold-pressed from regional olives (Taggiasca, Frantoio, Coratina).

🇮🇹Liguria, Italy

Oliva Taggiasca

Ligurian small sweet olive, eaten as table olive or pressed for delicate oil. A specialty of the western Riviera.

🇮🇹Marche, Italy

Olive Ascolane

Marche's stuffed green olives: large Ascolana olives filled with seasoned minced meat, breaded and fried. A signature antipasto and street snack.

🇧🇬Bulgaria

Olivier Salad

Салат Оливье

Olivier salad is a Russian potato salad of diced vegetables, meat, eggs, and mayonnaise.

🇮🇹Apulia, Italy

Orecchiette

Ear-shaped Apulian pasta, classic with cime di rapa.

🇮🇹Milan, Italy

Ossobuco alla Milanese

Milan's braised veal shank cooked with white wine, vegetables, and broth, finished with gremolata (lemon zest, garlic, parsley). The marrow is the prize.

🇮🇹Italy

Pancetta

Italian cured pork belly, essential soffritto/ragù base.

🇮🇹Italy

Pancetta all'aceto

Pancetta all'aceto is a Mugello preparation of pancetta cooked with vinegar until the cured pork is tender and the sharp cooking liquid becomes a glossy sauce.

🇮🇹Veneto, Italy

Pandoro

Verona's star-shaped Christmas bread, buttery and tall, dusted with vanilla sugar. No candied fruit—just butter, eggs, and vanilla.

🇮🇹Sardinia, Italy

Pane Carasau

Sardinian paper-thin twice-baked flatbread ("carta da musica").

🇮🇹Apulia, Italy

Pane di Altamura

PDO durum wheat sourdough from Altamura in Puglia, baked in a wood oven with a thick fragrant crust and a soft yellow crumb. One of Italy's most prized breads.

🇮🇹Tuscany, Italy

Pane Toscano

Tuscan saltless bread (pane sciocco) with a tall airy crumb and a thick crust, traditionally made without salt since the 12th-century salt tax imposed by Pisa.

🇮🇹Sicily, Italy

Panelle

Sicilian chickpea fritters, often in a sesame roll.

🇮🇹Milan, Italy

Panettone

Milan's tall dome-shaped Christmas bread of brioche-like dough studded with raisins and candied orange, slow-proofed for days. A national Christmas ritual.

🇮🇹Tuscany, Italy

Panforte di Siena

Sienese dense spiced fruit-and-nut cake with honey, pepper, and candied fruit—a medieval Christmas specialty. Chewy, spicy, and rich.

🇮🇹Piedmont, Italy

Panna Cotta

Piedmontese 'cooked cream' set with gelatin and flavored with vanilla, served inverted with a caramel or berry coulis. Silky and trembling.

🇮🇹Tuscany, Italy

Panzanella

Panzanella is a Tuscan salad of soaked stale bread, ripe tomatoes, cucumber, onion, basil, olive oil, and vinegar; the bread is softened into the salad rather than served as bread.

🇮🇹Apulia, Italy

Panzerotti

Puglian crescent-shaped fried dough pockets filled with tomato and mozzarella, like a small fried calzone. A beloved street snack across southern Italy.

🇮🇹Florence, Italy

Pappa al pomodoro

Tuscan tomato-and-bread soup.

🇮🇹Tuscany, Italy

Pappardelle al Cinghiale

Tuscan wide ribbon pasta with a slow-cooked wild boar ragù of red wine, rosemary, tomato, and juniper. A cold-weather icon of central Italy.