Verified in 2 cities.
Bigoli in salsa is a signature dish of Italy; we have verified places to eat it in Venice and Verona. Whole-wheat thick-cut spaghetti dressed with a slow-cooked onion and anchovy sauce.
Whole-wheat thick-cut spaghetti dressed with a slow-cooked onion and anchovy sauce. The canonical Venetian meatless pasta, served on lean-Friday and Christmas Eve.
Bigoli is the whole-wheat pasta extruded through a brass torchio (press) that gives it its rough texture and bite. The in salsa preparation, onions slowly melted into a paste with salted anchovies, was the canonical lean-day dish, traditionally served on Ash Wednesday, Good Friday and Christmas Eve. The dish has no tomato, no garlic, no cheese, just onion, anchovy and olive oil reduced to a near-confit. It survives unchanged at every traditional Venetian trattoria and is on the menu at Vini da Gigio, Anice Stellato and Antiche Carampane.
Where to eat in Venice:
Where to eat Bigoli in salsa in Venice: the editor picks
Verona's lean-Friday pasta, thick whole-wheat bigoli dressed with a simple but slow-cooked anchovy-and-onion sauce.
Bigoli in salsa is a Veneto-wide Friday and Lenten dish dating to the medieval Catholic fast-days when meat was forbidden. The Veronese version uses bigoli (the thick whole-wheat noodle pressed through the bigolaro) with a sauce of cured anchovies and slow-cooked onions cooked down to near-jam. It still appears on Verona menus from late February through Easter and on Fridays year-round at traditional rooms.
Where to eat in Verona:
Where to eat Bigoli in salsa in Verona: the editor picks
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