Spaghetti ai ricci di mare
Photo: Civa61 · CC BY-SA 4.0

Spaghetti tossed off the heat with raw sea urchin roe, garlic, oil and a little pasta water so the coral melts into a sauce rather than cooking into a paste. Alguerès calls the urchin bogamarì.

Sea urchin has been eaten on the Alghero quays for as long as anyone has fished them, split with a knife and scooped out with bread while still dripping. The pasta version is a restaurant refinement of that habit, and the town still runs a spring rassegna named for the urchin at the port fish market. Pressure on the stock changed the picture. The Sardinian regional government now fixes the harvest window by decree each year, reserving it to licensed professional fishermen, closing the season in spring and capping the weekly take, so the dish is genuinely seasonal and disappears from menus for months at a time.

2 editor picks for Spaghetti ai ricci di mare in Alghero, ranked by editorial score. All Alghero signature dishes · Spaghetti ai ricci di mare across every city.

Mercato del Pescato Locale ★ 4.5

€€SeafoodPorto

The Alghero port fish market on the Banchina Rafael Catardi is where restaurant kitchens buy the morning's landings before the town wakes. TableJourney pick.

DirectionsView

Rafel ★ 4.2

€€€SeafoodLido

Rafel sits on the sand at Lido San Giovanni in Alghero and cooks spaghetti ai ricci, lobster alla catalana and a fish soup worth the two-kilometre walk.

OrderSpaghetti ai ricci when the sea urchin season is open, lobster alla catalana when it is not.

DirectionsView

Learn to cook it, or eat it with a guide

Spaghetti ai ricci di mare makes more sense with someone from Alghero explaining it. These are the classes and tours we have checked, with booking links.

Book food experiences in Alghero

See all 102 bookable experiences in Alghero