Your essential food guide to Emilia-Romagna

• The must-make recipe from Emilia-Romagna
• What are the traditional ingredients in Emilia-Romagna?
• What are the famous dishes from Emilia-Romagna?
• The best cheeses to try from Emilia-Romagna
• The best wines to try from Emilia-Romagna
• The delicious. team’s top food experiences in Emilia-Romagna

Get to know the food of Emilia-Romagna

While Italian regions such as Lazio are known for their dishes, Emilia-Romagna is more famous for its produce (although it certainly has a fair number of famous recipes to its name too). A traditionally rich region with defined food production practices dating back millennia, there was always both demand and supply for incredible culinary feats. It’s hard to think of anywhere else in the world that offers a richer culture in cheesemaking and meat-curing.

Emilia-Romagna has a sizeable coastline – although you wouldn’t necessarily know it, as all its most famous foods and dishes tend to be meat-based. Even though it boasts picturesque seaside towns and beaches, it’s the fertile plains and history-steeped cities that draw the crowds. If you’re never too far from a good meal in Italy, you’re probably footsteps away from one in Emilia-Romagna.

Our hero recipe from Emilia-Romagna

Gnocco fritto (deep-fried pasta) by chef Angela Hartnett, Murano restaurant

Deep-fried pasta sounds like something you’d dream up after getting in from a night out, but in Emilia-Romagna it’s a common snack (and known by the much more sophisticated name gnocco fritto). As the pasta dough hits the hot oil it puffs up into a crisp, hollow shell – perfect for eating with cured meat or scooping up soft cheese.

“Culatello is a great delicacy of the Emilia-Romagna region. This succulent meat is cut from the thigh of the pig but, unlike parma ham, it’s a boneless piece. There are only about 10 producers of culatello around Parma, and it’s only available from October to March. If you can get hold of some, serve it with the gnocco fritto – the combination just melts on the tongue.”

One of the UK’s best loved chefs and restaurateurs, Angela Hartnett MBE is known for her sophisticated yet simple Italian-inspired cooking. Born in Britain, her passion for good, honest food and the best ingredients was instilled in her by her Italian grandmother and mother. After working her way up in the Gordon Ramsay empire, she went solo. Her restaurants include the Michelin-starred Murano in Mayfair and a trio of little-sister Café Murano sites. Dish, Angela’s Waitrose-branded cookery podcast with Nick Grimshaw, is her latest hit.

Cook gnocco fritto (deep-fried pasta)

What are the traditional ingredients in Emilia-Romagna?

• Meat Beef and pork are given equal billing in the region, and there’s plenty of it on offer too. You’ll find both cured, grilled over flames, braised slowly over several hours or minced in ragùs. To a lesser extent you’ll find lamb and mutton (usually roasted in large cuts) and nearer the border with Tuscany chicken becomes more prevalent (a meat that doesn’t appear as much as you’d think in Italian cuisine as a whole).
• Salumi It’s safe to say Emilia-Romagna comes top of the salumi scoreboard out of all the Italian regions. Prosciutto di parma (parma ham) is probably its crowning glory, but Bologna’s mortadella comes in at a close second. That’s just the tip of the iceberg, however – culatello di zibello (cured pork leg), coppa piacentina (cured pork neck), zampone (a cured pig’s trotter stuffed with minced pork), cotechino (a rustic sausage eaten at Christmas) and salame di felino (an ancient, rustic cured sausage) are all considered among the best in Italy.
• Balsamic vinegar of Modena This dark, sweet, complex grape vinegar is one of Italy’s finest products, with a fiercely protected set of rules and regulations to ensure its quality remains unparalleled. The vinegar, made from grape juice and must, is aged in barrels over several years, during which time it darkens, takes on flavours from the wood and concentrates in flavour and viscosity. Some very aged balsamic vinegars are like a thick syrup.
• Pasta Emilia-Romagna is where a lot of our favourite pasta shapes come from – especially fresh egg pastas (which are often coloured green with spinach). Tagliatelle and garganelli are dressed with all manner of ragùs and sauces, but it’s the filled pastas where the region really sings. Tortellini is the most famous, but cappelletti, cappellacci, anolini, balanzoni and tortelli are all regional variations of stuffed pasta that enjoy just as much attention.
• Cherries Amarena cherries are native to Emilia-Romagna, and they’re almost always preserved in syrup. The sour cherry and sweet syrup provide a perfect balance of flavour. Fabbri, the main producer of these preserved cherries, is responsible for making them world-famous – partly thanks to the beautiful blue and white ceramic jars they’re sold in.

What are the famous dishes from Emilia-Romagna?

• Ragù alla bolognese The pasta dish to rule all other pasta dishes, the city of Bologna’s famous meat sauce has become a catch-all term in the UK for any ragù containing meat and tomatoes – but the original is far more specific. The Bologna Chamber of Commerce has an ‘official’ recipe for bolognese, including what can be added and what certainly cannot.
• Piadina romagnola A flatbread used to create sandwiches and a common street food across the region, sold from stalls specialising in piadina. They’re usually stuffed with cured meats and cheeses, although sweet versions exist too.
• Lasagne There are many different lasagnes found throughout Italy, with various regions claiming theirs was the original and best. But the lasagne most of us think of – a meat ragù layered with bechamel and fresh egg pasta sheets – is definitely an Emilia-Romagnan invention.
• Gnocchi fritto Small rectangles of pasta dough are deep-fried in hot oil, which causes them to puff up, turn hollow and become super crisp. They’re used in a similar way to crackers, served alongside salumi and cheese for an incredible antipasto.
• Erbazzone A common sight at picnics during the warmer months, this pie is made with a very thin shortcrust pastry and filled to the brim with a mixture of spinach, chard, herbs and other greens. Parmesan or ricotta are usually added too, as are fried nuggets of pancetta.
• Passatelli Classified as a pasta but certainly not like any other, passatelli are short fat noodles cooked in broth. Breadcrumbs, eggs and parmesan are passed through a passatelli iron (similar to a potato ricer), directly into simmering stock and poached until firm, then served in the broth they’re cooked in.
• Torta barozzi One of Italy’s most famous cakes, torta barozzi is a flourless combination of chocolate, nuts, sugar, eggs, butter, coffee and rum – although no one knows the exact recipe apart from the descendants of Eugenio Gollini, who first invented the cake in the 1880s at his pastry shop in Modena.

The best cheeses to try from Emilia-Romagna

Parmesan (or to give it its true title, parmigiano reggiano) is probably the most famous cheese in the world, let alone Emilia-Romagna – and it is treated with an almost revered respect. But for something less known, keep an eye out for squacquerone, a very soft creamy cheese matured for just four days, or provolone valpandana, a smooth, stretched curd cheese (like a fimer mozzarella) which is either sweet or peppery, depending on how long it’s been aged.

The best wines to try from Emilia-Romagna

Emilia-Romagna produces a large amount of wine, and a lot of it is of high quality, especially the sangiovese and trebbiano white wines. But it’s lambrusco – a slightly sparkling red wine – that it is most famous for. In the 1980s lambrusco was seen as (and often produced as) a cheap alcopop-type beverage, but the real thing is incredible, full of sweet, cherry flavours and a light fizz that makes it both satisfying and refreshing – and the perfect pairing to many of the region’s meat-heavy dishes.

Browse wine editor Susy Atkins’ pick of the nine best Italian wines to buy right now.

The delicious. team’s top food experiences in Emilia-Romagna

Laura Rowe, editorial director
“I recall drinking lambrusco at every opportunity – and toasts laden with pistachio paste and folds of mortadella after climbing a wonky tower that is now closed to the public because it’s so off-kilter and dangerous….”

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