The granular, crystal-studded cheese aged 12 to over 100 months in the dairies around Parma. Eaten in chunks with balsamico, grated over everything, and visited at the source.
Where to eat it: 3 restaurants across 1 city.
Benedictine and Cistercian monasteries drained the plain around Parma and Reggio in the Middle Ages and needed a cheese that kept; nine centuries later the recipe is still milk, salt, rennet and time. Boccaccio already joked about a mountain of grated Parmigiano in the 1350s. The consortium fire-brands every approved wheel, dairies like Gennari and San Pier Damiani welcome visitors to the morning make, and ageings now stretch past 100 months for collectors.
Common allergens: Milk
Tip from the editors. Store the wedge wrapped in baking paper then loosely in cling film in the fridge door, never freezer, and it keeps for weeks.
Salumeria Garibaldi stocks Parmigiano Reggiano aged to 100 months and hand-tied culatello on Strada Garibaldi, Parma grocery-shopping at its most serious.
Tip: The extreme-aged Parmigiano wheels are the draw; ask to taste the 60-month against the 100-month before choosing.
Degusteria Romani turns the Silvano Romani salumi counter into table service on Borgo Palmia in Parma: culatello flights, verticals, Emilian glasses.
Signature pour: Malvasia di Candia with a culatello tasting board
Wine focus: Emilian labels built around the salumi counter
Food: Silvano Romani's cut-to-order salumi and cheese tastings
Order: The culatello and Parmigiano vertical with a Malvasia.
Tip: It shares ownership with the Prosciutteria shop on Farini, so taste here and buy the vacuum-packed take-home versions there.
Podere Stuard runs Parma's agricultural time capsule: an experimental farm shop selling Red Cow Parmigiano and heritage produce grown on site.
Why locals love it: A working experimental farm on the city's western edge whose shop sells old Parma varieties nobody exports.
Tip: Look for Vacca Rossa Parmigiano and heirloom vegetable varieties from the farm's conservation plots; go Saturday morning for full shelves.
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