Your menu in Genoa, where pesto is art and the caruggi hide centuries-old trattorias

The reality of a restaurant in Genoa

Genoa is a city that international tourism is just discovering: 2.5 million visitors a year and growing, driven by the cruises that dock at the port (the largest in Italy) and the cultural tourism of the UNESCO historic center. But this growth comes to a city with a gastronomic fabric of family trattorias in the caruggi (alleys) that have been serving the same Genoese for decades. A French tourist from a cruise disembarks and has 6 hours to eat: he gets lost in the caruggi of the largest historic center in Europe and needs a menu that quickly explains what pesto alla genovese with basilico di Prà is (and why it is not the industrial pesto from the supermarket). A German is looking for focaccia di Recco but doesn't know that it is a completely different dish from focaccia genovese: a very thin dough filled with stracchino that only exists in Recco and its surroundings. An American sees 'farinata' and needs to know that it is a chickpea flour cake baked in a wood-fired oven, an Arabic heritage from the 13th century. A Swiss (the Swiss are the fourth most frequent tourists in Genoa) seeks simplicity and needs to understand the trofie (short hand-twisted pasta, without egg) and the minestrone alla genovese (with pesto inside, not like the minestrone he knows). The basilico genovese DOP di Prà is not just any ingredient: it only grows in the greenhouses of Prà, has small leaves and an unmistakable aroma, and is the base of authentic pesto. Without a menu that explains this, the tourist thinks your pesto is 'green pasta' and does not understand the price. And Genoa is a cruise port: passengers disembark hungry, in a hurry, and unfamiliar with the city. A multilingual digital menu is the difference between capturing that diner or losing them to the first restaurant with pictures they find.