Hand-rolled semolina tubes formed around a knitting needle, thick and chewy, dressed with a long-cooked tomato and sausage sugo or with seafood on the Alghero coast.
Where to eat it: 1 restaurant across 1 city.
Busa is the Sardinian word for the thin iron rod, often a knitting needle, that the pasta is rolled around. The technique belongs to the island's interior, where hard durum semolina and water made pasta without eggs, and each piece is shaped by hand on a wooden board. The tube's thickness is the point: it takes a heavy sugo without collapsing. It reaches Alghero tables through families who came down from mountain villages, and appears on the menu at Trattoria Lo Romanì, where the kitchen's roots are in Tonara in the Barbagia.
Common allergens: Gluten
Tip from the editors. Keep the dough firmer than you think. A soft dough sticks to the needle and tears instead of wrapping.
Under stone vaults on Via Lazzaretto in Alghero, Lo Romanì is run by Gigi and Vittoria and closes on Mondays, with porceddu on the meat side.
Order: Macarrones de busa from Tonara, followed by whatever Gigi bought that morning.
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