Types of Italian Food by Region

The cuisine of northern Italy is not just about satiation, but essential to the spirit of Italian life that captures the specific culture. Local ingredients inform cooking style, with Italians utilizing the landscape to create dishes that shape the regional identity. While many people think of olive oil and spaghetti as staple Italian ingredients, northern Italian cuisine uses less of these elements, focusing more on butter, lard, and dairy-based cooking influenced by historically fluid borders, as well as occupations by the French and Habsburg empires.

Famous dishes of Northern Italy: Fontina cheese | Pesto bianco | Panettone | Risotto al neri di seppi | panna cotta

Learn more: 4 Dishes to Try on Your Trip to Emilia-Romagna | 4 Best Cities to Explore the Food of Emilia-Romagna

Piedmont

Popular dishes of Piemonte, also known as Piedmont, highlight the striking landscape of Alpine mountains, soft rolling hills, and the lush floodplains of the Po River. The multifaceted cuisine demonstrates the natural burst of flavors, from recipes that contain prized white truffles, fanciful meats, and flavorful cheeses. Home and commercial chefs use the local bounty of freshwater fish and fresh pasta dough throughout the year for a perfect representation of how seasonal and local ingredients can create essential tastes.

Liguria

The rugged coastline of Liguria makes the most of its position on land bordering the sea. The bounty of luxurious seafood, meaty mushrooms, and aromatics add to the luscious flavors of regional cuisine. From the Tyrrhenian Sea’s gorgeous turquoise waters to the mild climate of the rocky peaks, the unique characteristics of the countryside - surrounding forests, pine trees, and sea air - offer distinct flavor to the harvested and wild ingredients.

Aosta Valley

The Aosta Valley is a small region at Italy’s most northwestern point. Aosta Valley disrupts the preconceptions of Italian cooking by using French, German, and Swiss influences that focus more on cheese, hearty stews, and plenty of butter. Rather than bread or pasta, home and commercial chefs use cornmeal to make polenta porridge. The tiny region in the forested and alpine terrain is known for skilled hunters and farmers who thrive on the local quality and variety of meat and agricultural products that represent the rich regional ingredients available in abundance.

Lombardy

The region of Lombardy has less of a cohesive culinary culture than other regions of Italy due to the boundaries stretching from the river valleys in the south to the Alps in the north. Rice for risotto is the staple carbohydrate for locals, with robust flavors deriving from spices like saffron, but the overall regional cuisine defines quality by blending the ancient customs of Rome with the culinary traditions of the Lombard dynasty.

Learn more: 4 Dishes to Try While on Vacation in Milan

Trentino-Alto Adige/South Tyrol

Trentino-Alto Adige straddles the border between Italy and Germany geographically and through its culinary heritage. Home and commercial chefs draw inspiration from the region’s northeastern position, with delicacies shaped by the mountains, colorful summers, and chilly winters. The culture leans more toward the classic ideals of the Austro-Hungarian empire when nearing the eastern borders, while the southern valleys retain their connection to Italian agriculture, farming, and cuisine.

Friuli-Venezia Giulia

Friuli-Venezia Giulia is Italy’s most easterly region. The cuisine of Friuli-Venezia Giulia adds Austria, Central Europe, and the Venetian Republic to its culinary heritage to create a distinctive experience. The landscape shifts from north to south, east to west, with rugged mountains and stony hills, arid plains, lush fields, and flowing rivers leading to the Adriatic Sea. Dishes reflect the region’s proximity to Slavic countries and the former Austro-Hungarian empire for flavors unlike any other region in Italy.

Veneto

Veneto touches the mountainous Austrian border and the Adriatic Sea. The cuisine of Veneto consists of dishes characterized by cold weather across the land and sea. Instead of pastas, regional dishes generally use risotto and polenta as their main source of carbohydrates, while fish and cheese play important but separate roles in the daily diet. Those on the shore focus on seafood and those in the mountains or plains use more agriculturally-rich ingredients, with the diversity revealing a history of the Venetian Republic, Austro-Hungarian empire, and French reign across the region.

Learn more: 5 dishes to try during your trip to Venice

Emilia-Romagna

The region of Emilia-Romagna is the epicenter of Italian culinary heritage. The cuisine of Emilia-Romagna constitutes the traditions of cucina povera and consists of ingredients like balsamic vinegar, Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, and prosciutto. The diverse landscapes allow farmers to continue growing olives, producing cheese and cured meats, or harvesting wild fruits and vegetables in most seasons. The bountiful and flavorful dishes build on the foundations of ancient Roman cooking and the culinary styles of the Byzantine empire.

Learn more: 5 Best Meals and Dishes in Bologna

Central Italian food derives from farming traditions, resulting in a long history of dishes. The diversity of the regions contains an abundance of flavorful options, renowned around the world, that offer some of the dishes most visitors find familiar. These are shaped by the extensive hills, mountains, seaside, and rivers. The cuisine dates back to the 4th century BC and has evolved with a continued commitment to using products without waste due to a heritage of poor farmers, the introduction of high-profile chefs, and the discovery of new crops from the New World.

Famous dishes of Central Italy: Pasta e fagioli | Ribollita | Lasagna | Panzanella | Bistecca fiorentina

Learn more: 4 Best Cities to Explore the Food of Tuscany | 5 Dishes to Try on Your Trip to Tuscany 

Tuscany

The famous region of Tuscany has simple and bold flavors. The traditional cuisine results in the memorable tastes of refined, deceptively modest dishes. A focus on the best local ingredients create simple but robust flavors derived from the diverse landscape of pine forests, glassy lakes, and the picturesque coastline of the Tyrrhenian Sea. The hills also support stunning olive orchards, grapevines, and chestnut forests. The captivating cooking style stems from a heritage of cucina povera, when home cooks refused to waste any part of an ingredient.

Learn more: 5 Best Meals and Dishes in Florence

Le Marche

Le Marche is a lesser-known region of central Italy that traditionally had a near-exclusive vegetarian diet. The culinary customs have used the natural resources along the coastline and in the mountains to create a gastronomic heritage that derives from ancient Rome, but has been influenced over the millennia by the neighboring regions. The fresh ingredients of Le Marche have created dishes steeped in classic recipes that show the evolution of the region’s traditions of cucina povera.

Umbria

Umbria is a landlocked region of central Italy. Medieval towns and castles embody the untouched customs of the region, culturally and gastronomically. Crops absorb the nutrients of the lush soils along the rugged Apennines and provide distinctive sheep’s milk has a herbaceous flavor. Hearty tastes play an important role in the Umbrian diet, with a combined culinary heritage grown out of the aristocratic culinary traditions of the Renaissance and the peasant cooking styles of Etruscan settlements and the Roman empire.

Lazio

The region of Lazio is considered the heart of Italy - the home of Rome and the center of the former empire. Lazio acts as the demarcation point between southern and northern Italy, acting as a melting pot of Italian gastronomy by combining ingredients, flavors, and cooking techniques of the north, south, and central regions. The topography hosts ancient rivers, glistening lakes, verdant valleys, rocky mountains, and shimmering waters, with culinary customs dating back to the Etruscans.

Learn more: 6 Dishes to Try While on Vacation in Rome

Abruzzo

The region of Abruzzo encompasses the wealth of inland Italy, with mountains, valleys, and untamed landscapes. Typical dishes regard the historical peasant cuisine highly. They focused more on vegetables than meat, but always were avid on utilizing all aspects of an ingredient, with gastronomic heritage that combines elements of the Roman and Byzantine empires, in addition to showcasing characteristics of Lombard, Sicilian, French and Spanish influences.

Southern Italian food features the bright and delicious flavors of the Mediterranean that many visitors associate with traditional Italian food. The cuisine represents the cooking of the poor, who used every ingredient at their disposal. Unlike the fertile soils of the north, southern cooks relied on the bounty of the sea or the hard-fought harvest of tenacious farmers. The warm Mediterranean climate reflects decadent dishes that have been touched with a history of trade and conquest, adding to the distinctive characteristics of the unforgettable gastronomy.

Famous dishes of Southern Italy: Granita | Pizza | Eggplant Parmesan | Bomba calabrese | Orecchiette

Learn more: 3 Best Cities to Explore the Food of Campania 

Molisa

The small southern region of Molise has a narrow coastline and a wealth of mountainous terrain which is reflected in the culinary traditions. The cuisine includes ingredients based on a history of seasonal share-cropping, with the inland earthenware dominating the culinary scene. As one of Italy’s youngest regions, Molise continues to carve out its own distinct gastronomic traditions separate from its neighbors, and has begun making a name for itself with distinctive local dishes.

Puglia

Puglia is at the most southeasterly point of the Italian peninsula. The cuisine of Puglia represents the importance of olive oil in the culinary heritage of the arid inlands and whitewashed coastline. The remarkable diversity of the cuisine across the region embodies the array of cultures settled in Puglia over the millennia, from the Roman to the Byzantine empires. Being connected by the active ports on the Adriatic and Ionian waters resulted in a surprising mixture of cultural influences on the ingredients, recipes, and culinary techniques used around the region.

Campania

Campania is a region of southern Italy, with elegant and refined cuisine blended with a heritage of peasant cooking. The cuisine includes world-renowned dishes that stem from a history of emigration over the previous century, resulting in the familiarization of traditional dishes within the international culinary sphere. The strong connection to rich coastline and inexpensive local ingredients draws on the gastronomic heritage of ancient Greek settlers and Roman provinces, foreign kingdoms and folk traditions, resulting in one of the country’s most renowned dishes, pizza margherita.

Learn more: 5 Dishes to Try on Your Trip to Naples

Basilicata

Basilicata nestles between Campania and Apulia at the center of the Italian peninsula’s southern edge. The cuisine focuses on simple ingredients, with clean flavors crafted from seasonal vegetables and fresh meats or seafood. Hot peppers were a staple of the farmers’ diet and remain a popular ingredient in the regional cuisine. The twisting landscape consists of a short coastline along the Tyrrhenian Sea and easily defended highlands that brought ancient Greek, Byzantine, and Lombard colonists who have influenced the food over the course of two millennia.

Calabria

Calabria is a small region at the southwesterly tip of the Italian peninsula. The gastronomic heritage dates back more than two millennia, with ancient Greek settlers, who gave way to the Roman Empire, Byzantines, and the Kingdom of Naples, in addition to the merchants from international cities who docked in the large ports. The craggy coastline provides access to delectable seafood, while the arid and rocky hills offer a selection of local vegetables often preserved in the off-season in oil or salt. The traditions of peasant cooking transform simple ingredients to fascinating dishes.

The cuisine of the Islands of Italy encompasses the rich culinary traditions of Sicily and Sardinia. The gastronomic heritage has created delicious and unique characteristics of shared cultural connections. By absorbing the customs of the variety of cultures who have settled on the islands over the last two millennia, such as Greek, Spanish, French, and Arab communities, the Mediterranean heritage comes to life within the cuisine. The diversified range of cooking techniques, herbs, and spices commonly used provide an unparalleled Italian culinary experience.

Famous dishes of the Italian Islands: Cannoli | Arancini | Pasta alla norma | Caponata | Su Porcheddu | Pecorino Sardo

Learn more: 7 Dishes to Try on Your Trip to Sicily | 4 Best Cities to Explore of Italy’s Islands 

Sicily

The island of Sicily embodies the preservation of culinary heritage of the Mediterranean and North African traditions. Rugged hills and rich volcanic soils fortify the bright flavors of the regional produce. The dishes have evolved over the millennia with spices, herbs, and ingredients that reflect the long tradition of trade and settlement dating back to Greek settlers before the Roman empire and adding to the greater culinary traditions of the Italian kitchen.

Learn more: 6 Dishes to Try on Your Trip to Palermo

Sardinia

The culinary traditions of Sardinia combine the contributions of different Mediterranean cultures over the course of thousands of years. The dramatic coastline and rugged landscape have shaped the type of produce available across the island. As the center of commercial sailing routes around the Mediterranean, Sardinia’s ancient culinary heritage dates back to 1500 BC, with elements influenced by the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greeks, Romans, and Vandals. Typical dishes capture the mild climate, strong winds, skilled fishers, and agrarian customs that speak to Italy’s reunification.

Learn more: Secrets of Mediterranean Islands: Sardinia and Corsica Tour

The regions of Italy celebrate their heritage through their cuisine, whether representing the Roman Empire or the Renaissance, Arab influence or French trade. With local and seasonal ingredients that constantly highlight tradition while embracing transitioning recipes, you can explore the culinary treasures of Italy and find inspiration for your next trip with Zicasso’s Italy Travel Guide. Speak with an Italy travel specialist by filling out a Trip Request or by calling our team at 1-888-265-9707.