Pizza, pasta, pesto, bruschetta, fresh leaves drizzled with peppery green olive oil ... We all think we know what Italian food is — but do we? On our travels, rather than on the pages of cookbooks, there is no such thing as a single, homogenised Italian cuisine — only Italian cuisines. Landscape, location and climate determine what is eaten in each of the 20 or so regions. Here is a guide to the best of them.
Piedmont
For: Turin, Alba, Bra (birthplace of the Slow Food movement), Costigliole d'Asti (Oxbridge-style university of fine food), Le Langhe (wine region).
What to eat: With the Alps to the north, the Italian Riviera to the south and the French border to the west, the Piemontese can plunder forests, mountains, pastures, rivers, the sea and the odd French cookery book for recipes. The Gallic influence is strong, with snails (lumache) and frogs (rane) featuring on menus. Alba is famous for its white truffles (sold at the covered market every Saturday and Sunday in October), its food emporia (think Gucci, not the Co-op) and a farmers' market in the shadow of Il Duomo. In restaurants, the custom is to serve a seemingly endless sequence of antipasti. At a single meal, I ate salami, lardo (shavings of white pork fat), pâté, cardo (cardoon, a cross between an artichoke and celery), coarse pork sausages, chargrilled peppers with cauda (a creamy sauce of anchovies and nuts), and a risotto flavoured with local barolo. The main course was potato gnocchi, followed by a cleansing salad of lamb's lettuce.
Where to eat: All the above were enjoyed at the Osteria della Rosa Rossa in Cherasco (Via San Pietro 31, 00 39 0172 488 133). £15 a head without wine.
Most bizarre dish: Bollito misto ("boiled mixed meats"), traditionally made with seven varieties — beef, veal, pork, chicken, calf's head, stuffed pig's trotter (zampone) and sausage (cotechino) — seven vegetables and seven condiments.
Lombardy
For: Milan, Cremona, Mantua, Bergamo; Lakes Como, Maggiore and Garda.
What to eat: Cattle farming is huge in this flat, fertile region around the Po, so milk, cheese, beef and veal are everywhere. Risotto alla Milanese (made with beef marrow, saffron and a square of edible gold leaf in addition to rice, onions, stock and Parmesan), cotoletta alla Milanese (veal chops fried in breadcrumbs) and osso buco ("bone with a hole", veal shank simmered in stock) are well known. This is rustic fare devoid of pasta but big on rice — often cooked in milk.
Where to eat: In Milan, at Alfredo, Gran San Bernardo (Via Borgese 14, 00 39 02 331 9000). Owned by veteran chef Alfredo Valli since 1964, it is set in an uninspiring residential area due east of Piazza Firenze — but its wine list and Milanese specialities are always reliable. About £35 a head, without wine.
Most bizarre dish: Chocolate with chilli — the creation of "molecular" chef Ettore Bocchia at the Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni in Bellagio, on Lake Como (00 39 031 950 216, villaserbelloni.com). Terrazza Serbelloni is worth a visit if you love five-star dining and money is no object. £50 a head without wine.
Liguria
For: Genoa, Portofino, Ventimiglia, San Remo.
What to eat: Drawing primarily on fresh fish and ingredients that thrive in a Mediterranean climate (herbs, pine nuts, raisins, tomatoes, vegetables), this Riviera region has been described as a culinary Eden. Minestrone ("big soup") was invented in Genoa as a hearty meal for dockers. Liguria's signature sauce is pesto alla Genovese (basil, olive oil, garlic, Parmesan) while its usual reliance on vegetables is broken with tocco di carne — Ligurian stewed meat in tomato sauce.
Where to eat: Manuelina in Recco (Via Roma 278, 00 39 0185 74128), about 12 miles east along the coast from Genoa. A century old, it was where well-heeled Italians ate on their way to the Riviera. Cheese focaccia is the house speciality. A classic is cappon magro — bream. £25 per head, without wine.
Most bizarre dish:
A polpettone (meat loaf) which, uniquely, contains no meat. Potatoes, garlic, string beans, parsley, oregano, thyme, eggs and Parmesan are baked in the oven for 45 minutes to produce a vegetarian triumph.
Veneto
For: Venice, Padua, Vicenza, Verona, Treviso.
What to eat: The true Venetian cuisine is lagoon food (eels, waterfowl, estuary fish, cuttlefish) with flavours from Venice's trading past — Asian spices, Caribbean rice 'n' peas, dried Baltic cod. Baccalà Mantecato (creamed cod) is made from boiled Baltic "stockfish" — once traded for spices — which is churned with olive oil, garlic and seasoning. Other classics are mazoro (wild duck), moleche fritte (fried soft-shelled crabs) and bisato su l'ara (eel with bay leaves).
Where to eat: Near Padua, blow your budget at Le Calandre (Via Liguria 1, Sarmeola di Rubana, +049 630 303, calandre.com) — a gastronomic shrine run by Max Alajmo, who won the first of two Michelin stars at the age of 22. A pathological purist, he draws upon a seventh-century Paduan cookbook and believes, for example, that the herbs added to lamb should be the ones it grazed on. £70-£100 per head, without wine, depending on season.
Most bizarre dish: Tiramisu. Billed as a historic dessert from the Medici period (a relation of Tuscan "Zuppa Inglese") it is more likely a cunning PR invention by the Le Beccherie restaurant, in Treviso, circa 1971. Meaning "pick me up", it is rumoured to have been a favourite with jaded local prostitutes.
Emilia-Romagna
For: Bologna, Parma, Modena, Ravenna, Reggio, the Adriatic resorts (Rimini).
What to eat: This is the gastronomic hub of Italy, the source of all our ideas about Italian food — thanks to a varied topography that includes coastline (for seafood, grilled fish), alluvial plains (beef, wheat, poultry, pork), lagoons (frogs and eels) and wooded hillsides (nuts, chestnuts, mushrooms, truffles, asparagus, berries). Split between Emilia, with Germanic influences, and Romagna, where Roman and Byzantine customs prevail, the region is the home of Parma ham, Parmesan, lasagne, tagliatelle, balsamic vinegar, countless salamis and bolognese sauce. Parma and Bologna compete for the title of Italy's most sophisticated culinary city, yet it's hard to beat a simple piadana (flat bread) with prosciutto, salami and cheeses — notably formaggio di fossa, from cow's and ewe's milk matured in caves. On the Adriatic, fish soup and rustida — fish and cuttlefish on skewers placed upright in the sand around a fire — are popular.
Where to eat: In Forli province, south-west of Ravenna, La Frasca (Via Matteotti 38, Castrocaro Terme, +0543 767471, lafrasca.it) presents traditional local ingredients, such as saffron risotto with sole and field herbs, in a modern style. £40pp.
Most bizarre dish: "La Ciupeta" — a twisted bread from Ferrara, with four horns, tied in a knot, extending like phalluses from a soft centre. As one website put it, "the shape is a fantastic combination of male and female sexual symbols".
Tuscany
For: Florence, Siena, Pisa, Arrezzo, Lucca, San Gimignano.
What to eat: You can't get more earthy — or visceral — than rural Tuscany, where hardcore country dishes proliferate. Choose from scottiglia (a woodland game stew flavoured with lemons), rare Chianina beef, pappagorgia di tacchino fritta (fried turkey's "double chin"), le digiune (innards of pork, veal or lamb) and la fanfara (literally "the fanfare" — with lots of noise and little substance), made from the cheap heart and lungs of beef cattle. However, Tuscany is also the garden of Italy, abundant with artichokes, asparagus, courgettes, cabbages and chard. Dried white beans (toscanelli, cannellini, zolfini) and fava (broad beans) have earned Tuscans the nickname "mangiafagioli" (bean eaters).
Where to eat: Named after a dish involving chicken giblets, Cibreo (Via dei Macci 118, +055 2341100) is the place to eat in Florence. Simple food — herb polenta, yellow pepper soup, liver — ably presented. £30 per head.
Most bizarre dish: Pollo al mattone, or "chicken under a brick". Ancient Etruscan tomb paintings depict poultry flattened with a black basalt rock and baked; in today's crispy version, the chicken is pounded flat and rubbed with olive oil, garlic and salt. It is then placed directly on coals, with a brick on top.
Marches
For: Ancona, Urbino, Loreto.
What to eat: In Ancona, where the fishermen land a bumper catch each day of sardines, hake, bream and sole, the brodetto (fish stew) is traditionally made with 13 marine species. Dried cod is used in a dish called stoccafisso, while sea snails cooked in fennel are a delicacy. From the rolling hills inland come mutton and lamb, air-dried hams, funghi, truffles and herbs. Above all, the Marchese are massive carnivores, with grigliata mista di carni (chargrilled meats) and pork cooked alle brace (on embers) a speciality. Unique to the region is vincisgrassi — a rich lasagne made with porcini and prosciutto, not beef, and no tomatoes.
Where to eat: Near Ancona, the gourmet choice is Madonnina del Pescatore in Senigallia (Lungomare Italia 11, Marzocca di Senigallia, +071 698267, madonninadelpescatore.it) where chef Moreno Cedroni boasts a Michelin star. His avant-garde creations include Mediterranenan sushi — such as tiny, delicate receptacles moulded from black carnaroli rice and filled with raw seafood. £50 per head, excluding drinks, for the traditional tasting menu. A cheaper option is Cedroni's bar and fish salumeria (delicatessen) in Senigallia, called Anikò (Piazza Saffi 10). Fishy, tapas-style snacks cost a couple of pounds.
Most bizarre dish: Steamed razor clams presented in their long, blade-like shells — another of Moreno Cedroni's marine specialities from the Marchese.
Campania
For: Naples, Sorrento, Ischia, Amalfi, Positano.
What to eat: Not pizza. The 19th-century street food for which Naples is famous is often a gloopy, cheesy mess — and rarely authentic. Instead, look out for vendors of gelato (ice-cream) made with fresh fruit and nuts, icy granitas flavoured with coffee or thick-skinned Amalfi lemons (source of the sweet liqueur limoncello), and macaroni in pummarola (a tomato sauce made from the tiny San Marzano tomato), Neapolitan sauce (tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, basil) or its pork-based variation, monteroduni. La pastiera Napoletana — a milky grain pie — is an Easter speciality in Naples but the local love of sweets and pastries is evident all year round. Fish and seafood are other Neapolitan passions. This is also the place for pasta, in every shape and size, often served with tomatoes, peppers, aubergines and courgettes which grow abundantly in the region's volcanic soil.
Where to eat: Seafood fans should visit La Torre del Saracino (Localita Seiano, Vico Equense, near Naples, +081 80 28 555), chef Genarro Esposito's highly acclaimed restaurant overlooking the Gulf of Naples. Tasting menus from £40 per head, excluding wine.
Most bizarre dish: A thick soup of fuscelle (a hand-made cow's cheese) with triglie (red mullet) and sea urchins plucked from the rocks of the Amalfi Coast. This starter helped win Esposito three cherished Gambero Rosso forks.
