Fine ribbons tossed in oil and pasta water, then blanketed with grated cured grey mullet roe. Salt, iodine and almost nothing else, the plainest good plate in Alghero.
Where to eat it: 3 restaurants across 1 city.
Bottarga di muggine is grey mullet roe salted, pressed and air dried into a hard amber block, a Mediterranean preservation technique that Sardinia has practised for centuries and now exports as one of its signature products. The pasta dish is deliberately austere, because the roe carries the whole flavour and heat destroys it. Alghero kitchens grate it over tagliolini at the pass, sometimes with pecorino, sometimes with lemon zest. Al Refettorio serves a version with pecorino, and Nautilus uses the same roe over spaghetti with clams.
Common allergens: Gluten, Fish
Tip from the editors. Buy bottarga in the block and grate it yourself. Pre-grated tubs oxidise fast and taste of cardboard.
Andreini's Al Refettorio in Alghero opens for lunch and dinner off Piazza Civica, with suckling pig, sheep ribs and a heated portico for winter.
Order: Tagliolini with bottarga and pecorino, then the suckling pig with potato millefoglie.
Booking is sensible at Nautilus in Alghero, where the terrace tables over the marina go first and the kitchen runs lunch and dinner every day.
Order: Spaghetti with clams and bottarga, eaten on the terrace above the marina.
Francesco and his family have run Alamo in Alghero since 2012, and linguine with scampi, bottarga and lemon zest is the plate to order first.
Why locals love it: Francesco and his family cook a 21-ingredient paella in a lane most visitors walk past on the way to the bastions.
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