Regional Cuisines of Italy: What to Eat, Region by Region

Cinque Terre food is Ligurian coastal cooking: anchovies from Monterosso, trenette al pesto, focaccia and olive oil from the terraces. This guide names the dishes to order, the restaurants worth planning around in each village, and how to tell a good seafood plate from a lazy one.

Italy cooks in at least twenty different dialects, and the menu in front of you will tell you which one you are eating. This guide sets out the landmark dishes of the north, centre, south and islands, the Italian terms you will meet on the page, and how to match a region to the city you are already visiting.

Amalfi Coast cooking is sea and citrus: fist-sized lemons, fish landed at Cetara, mozzarella di bufala and pasta kept deliberately plain. This guide covers the dishes to order, the pasta shapes worth judging a kitchen by, the named places to eat from Amalfi to Positano, and how a trattoria pizza sits against a beachfront plate of langoustines.

Campania food runs on seafood, vegetables, buffalo mozzarella and durum wheat, with Naples at the centre for pizza, pastries and coffee. Here is what each signature dish and ingredient actually is, from sfogliatella to pasta alla Nerano, and where across the region to eat it.

Emilia-Romagna food is not one cuisine but a constellation of them: fresh egg pasta and ragù, pork in every form, piadina in Romagna, Parmigiano Reggiano and balsamic vinegar. Here is what each dish is, how Bologna, Parma and Modena differ, and how to eat well from a gastronomia counter or a trattoria table.

Friuli food runs on Montasio cheese, San Daniele ham, lagoon seafood and a Triestine table shaped by Vienna as much as by Venice. Here are the dishes to order, the towns to eat them in and how a meal here works.

Italian Christmas food is three meals, not one: a meat-free Christmas Eve built on fish, vegetables and beans, a long Christmas Day lunch in courses from antipasto to panettone, and a relaxed Santo Stefano of leftovers. Here is what fills each table and why the menu changes from region to region.

Liguria's kitchen runs on basil, olive oil, vegetables and seafood, with a pasta repertoire you rarely see elsewhere. Here is what each dish is, from pesto Genovese and trofie to corzetti, panzotti, farinata and pandolce, so you can order without guessing.

Lombardy cooks with butter, rice, aged cheese and beef rather than olive oil and tomatoes. Here are the dishes worth ordering, from risotto alla milanese and ossobuco to casoncelli, pizzoccheri, bresaola and panettone, plus how the cooking shifts from Milan to Mantua and the Valtellina.

Piedmont food runs on butter, dairy, nuts and beef rather than olive oil and tomatoes. Here is what vitello tonnato, agnolotti, tajarin, bagna càuda, Bra sausage, risotto and gianduja actually are, and how to order them across Turin, Alba, Bra and the Langhe.

Sardinian food reads differently from mainland Italian cooking because the island grew up apart: ridged malloreddus under a pork and fennel sauce, minted culurgiones, toasted fregula with clams, paper-thin pane carasau, roast porceddu and grey mullet bottarga. Here is what each dish is and how to order it.

Sicilian food runs on citrus, aubergine, almonds, pistachio, seafood and pasta, with its own breakfast, its own street food and its own names for dishes. Here are the plates to order, the cities they belong to, and how a day of eating on the island is actually structured.

South Tyrol food reads closer to Austro-Hungarian cooking than to southern Italy: bread dumplings, spinach-filled pasta crescents, smoked speck on hard spiced bread, goulash, game and apple strudel. Here is what to order, what each German and Italian name means, and where the local dishes are served.

Tuscan food is cucina povera: stale bread, beans, kale and one pig a year. Here are the dishes to order, from ribollita to pappa al pomodoro, and why the bread has no salt.

Umbrian cooking is built on a handful of good ingredients: black truffles from Norcia, cured pork from the norcinerias, Castelluccio lentils, lake fish from Trasimeno and a flatbread baked on a hot stone. These are the dishes to order and what each one is.

Venetian food is a port city's cooking: lagoon fish, Adriatic seafood, spices from the old trade routes and the Veneto's rice, peas and radicchio. Here are the dishes worth ordering, the bacari where you eat them standing up, and how a Venetian day of eating actually runs.