Bigoli In Salsa appears as a signature dish in 2 Italy cities. See each city's local variant and where to eat it.
Bigoli in salsa · Venice
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:
- Vini da Gigio
- Osteria Anice Stellato
- Antiche Carampane
- Trattoria Bar Pontini
- Osteria alle Testiere
Bigoli in salsa · Verona
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:
- Antica Bottega del Vino
- Trattoria Al Bersagliere
- Trattoria al Cristo