I love a good market, and Genoa has a great one. The Mercato Orientale Genova (MOG) is located halfway along the lovely Via Settembre (see later post). One hundred and five stalls are organised in two concentric circles around a central atrium, which features a food court with eleven outlets on the ground floor and a cooking school on the second floor.
The stalls are heaving with vibrant fruit & veg, fresh seafood, meat, cheeses, spices and handmade pasta, with top quality products from all over Italy, as well as local artisanal producers.
Here’s some of the amazing produce I saw…
Is doesn’t get much better than this!
So what did I buy and where?
A lot of my provisions came from Reginella, a deli stall which sells cheese and cured meats…
…as well as dried pasta, rice, pesto and a myriad of other delicacies which spill out from the stall. They even had peperoncino-flavoured Maldon!
I have a good knowledge of Italian food, but I’d never heard of some of the products on display, such as Testaroli, a spongy bread-like pasta. Apparently it’s the earliest recorded pasta in Italy, originating in pre-Roman Etruscan times.
Another new pasta for me was Scucuzzun (aka Scucussu), which often gets used in Minestrone alla Genovese. As the name suggests, it’s a cousin of North African Couscous and is also quite similar to Fregola from Sardinia (once Genoese territory).
I also purchased some top notch Trofie (the 16-20 minutes’ cooking time a sign of quality!) to go with my homemade wild garlic pesto that I’d foraged earlier in the month back home. You can of course get great basil pesto in jars here as well, so you’ll be all set to make the local classic, Trofie al Pesto.
Without prompting, the lady also suggested I get a bottle of M’Inchinotto, the very same liqueur I’d been given by the waiters at Zefferino the night before. It’s very particular to Genoa, made with the famous bitter Chinotto orange from Savona.
M’Inchinotto is best taken with a slice of local Pandolce (known in English as Genoa Cake). You can buy it from Reginella, but you could also go to a specialist like Pasticceria Profumo Genoa.
However my best purchase from this stall was some absolutely stunning local Lardo, the details of which I didn’t catch, except that it had been rolled in rosemary, but they’ll let you try a little before purchase if you ask ‘posso provare un po’?’.
I paired the Lardo with another product new to me, some Scaldatelle from this stall specialising in Puglian products.
Scaldatelle are a larger variety of Tarelli, the most moreish toroidal savoury biscuit known to man. So I got a bag of them as well.
Another recommendable charcuterie item is Salame genovese di Sant’Olcese, a dry sausage made with a combination of pork (sometimes with added beef or veal), red wine, garlic, salt, and peppercorns.
Sadly this would be the last time I could legally take any meat and cheese back to the UK due to new importation rules in April 2025.
I bought capers, pine nuts and tiny Taggiasche olives (love these) from the stall opposite Reginella. They are essential ingredients for many classic local recipes, one of my favourites being Ligurian Baked Fish.
They also sell Acciughe Salate, salted anchovies, another famous local product, but not something I fancied transporting back to the UK.
I bought my fruit and veg from Rela, one of the oldest vegetable stalls in the market (since 1920). The red onions are Cipolla Rossa di Tropea, a sweet Calabrian variety favoured by Italian cooks that I’ve never seen on sale in the UK.
Although I was sorely tempted, I didn’t get a box of Pomodorino del Piennolo tomatoes from Vesuvius which were just coming into season. At 1.5kg, it was a bit too big for my suitcase.
Vianello seems to be the most popular cheese stall but the queue was lengthy whenever I went and I didn’t want to hold people up with my long list of Ligurian cheeses. Probably best to go first thing if that’s what your after.
Wine lovers should head to La Vineria in the market atrium. The go to white wine in Liguria is Vermentino, and you can get a light sparkling version here. Personally though, I prefer Pigato, another local white wine grape. Ask them if they also have Sciacchetrà, a sweet passito wine from Cinque Terre.
Elsewhere in town, I picked up handmade chocolates from Cioccolateria Romeo Viganotti (see my coming post on ‘the sweet stuff’) and some ugly looking but very delicious Amaretti di Voltaggio from Pasticceria Liquoreria Marescotti.
Another good hunting ground for ingredients is the Genoa branch of Eataly down in the Porto Antico. Here you can get a wide variety of fine local specialties from around the country. I picked up some Guanciale pork cheek, Carnaroli rice for risotto, Busiate pasta from Sicily, and truffle-infused Pici pasta from Tuscany, amongst other items.
You can find MOG, Eataly and the other businesses mentioned on my Google map.
Street food next!