Growing up, Italy was one of my favourite places to visit. It was friendly and affordable; you could establish instant rapport by discussing football or motor racing; and something else delicious to eat revealed itself on every visit.

There are few cuisines that we can rhapsodise about more than Italian. Almost everyone can name a handful of Italian dishes, even just the ‘p’ ones: pizza, polenta, pasta, pesto … The geographical, historical and political isolation of the cities and regions that make up this culinary powerhouse, however, means there are so many hidden gems. In honour of the Italian issue, here are my favourites.

FONTINA
The north of Italy might be famous for white truffles, risotto and red-wine braises, but until you’ve had polenta or Italian fondue in Aosta Valley you haven’t lived. The secret is oozy, melty fontina cheese that drifts in and out of fashion here for toasties.

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VEAL MILANESE
The northern city is the home of panettone, osso buco and the crumbed veal cutlet that bears its name. The best is cooked in an old town trattoria, chased by a cup of boozy, fluffy zabaglione made with an espresso machine steam wand.

GNOCCO FRITTO
Head south into Emilia-Romagna and you enter the world of parmesan, parma ham and balsamic vinegar – but my best memories are of sticky slabs of cotechino sausage served with fizzy, chilled Lambrusco, and a laneway dining room in Modena where dinner started with gnocchi fritto. On these crisp thin-skinned balls of hot air, gossamer slices of lardo and prosciutto melt into translucency – an even greater attraction for me than the city’s arcaded streets and languid hours of aperitivo and negronis. 

PORCINI
Next stop, Bologna. Here it’s not the bolognese that I recall but a salad of sliced raw white truffle, porcini and parmesan dressed in lemon juice. Nearly 30 years later, I can still see the back room we, ragamuffins visiting for the football, were ushered into, and still taste the heady funk of the fungi. Then, returning 25 years on, there was the fried porcini tossed through pasta that made one of the best meals of my life. No Michelin star or three-figure bill, just the simple perfection that defines so much Italian cooking.

BEANS
It’s nothing fancy that leaps to mind when I think of the palazzo-crowned rolling hills of Tuscany. It’s the peasant simplicity of a bean stew, the creaminess cut by a drop of treacle-thick aged balsamic vinegar that was impossibly sweet and tart all at once.

THAT ONE PASTRY
The magnificence of pizza in Naples is matched by a cream-filled, crispy puff pastry sfogliatella, served with a caffé for breakfast. Here is a pastry I’d happily put up against a Breton kouign-amann, any Danish pastry or Parisian croissant. I went to Sicily for granitas in Noto and arancini in Palermo but the greatest moment of table-thumping culinary overload was a plate of red Mazara prawns in a beach-side bistro in Menfi. Nothing prepared me for the warmth of the welcome and those sweet crustaceans, eaten with a little oil, salt and lemon juice.

AND STILL MORE
The great joy, of course, is that after more than 20 visits there are still bits of Italy that have escaped me. But I know that when I finally make it to Sardinia, Puglia, Calabria and Abruzzo, I’ll have many more discoveries to make.

Related story: Bring the taste of Italy home, with the best Italian culinary experiences

Find Matt’s recipe for the cheesy white polenta and braised mushrooms pictured above, here.