It’s beige and a little wan, but like many beloved brown foods, every spoonful of salsa di noci tastes like, “Why don’t I eat this more often?” The predecessor of pesto alla genovese by at least 300 years, Ligurian walnut sauce is, of course, made with nuts, used to dress pasta, and traditionally pestata (i.e. “pounded” with a mortar and pestle). And yet, it is not called pesto—that name is reserved for salsa di noci’s more popular and admittedly far more beautiful little brother made with basil and pine nuts. 

Thankfully, they don’t always eat for aesthetics in the crescent-shaped Italian region that cradles the sea, where la salsa di noci is nearly as common as basil pesto. As Vittorio Bisso of Da Ö Vittorio, a family-owned restaurant in Recco, simplifies Liguria’s stance on walnut sauce: “It’s less famous, but we like it.”