Food and Wine in the Cinque Terre: Pesto, Sciacchetrà and Limoncino, and Which Tastings Are Worth Booking

You can eat and drink the Cinque Terre perfectly well without a tour, so book one only if it gives you something a restaurant does not: making pesto yourself, standing in a terraced vineyard, or having a local walk you through a town’s food. Here are the dishes and drinks to look for, and the tours that are worth comparing.

What to look for

• Pesto. Ligurian basil sauce, usually served with trofie or trenette pasta. It is one of the signature dishes of the area.
• Focaccia and farinata. Focaccia is sold at bakeries, often plain or with onion or cheese. Farinata is a baked flatbread of chickpea flour, cooked in a wood-fired oven.
• Anchovies. Monterosso holds festivals for them, served fried or salted.
• Sciacchetrà. The local sweet passito wine, made from dried grapes and produced only in the Cinque Terre. A tasting is an easy way to try it before you buy a bottle.
• Lemons and limoncino. Monterosso lemons turn up in the liqueur, a mix of lemon zest, alcohol and sugar.

Pesto class

The pesto-making class with wine and food tasting lasts 1.5 hours from €65 and has 241 reviews with 4.8 stars. The listing says you make pesto with a mortar and eat it with gnocchi or focaccia, plus local cheeses, olive oils and a wine tasting; the start time you choose decides which of the two you get. It is the most reviewed hands-on food class in the area. A longer class is the pasta and pesto cooking class with aperitivo in La Spezia, 2.5 hours from €110, but it has only 8 reviews so far. Both listings are on the booking page; check the meeting point there before you plan around them.

Wine and vineyards

• The Vernazza heroic vineyards hike with wine tasting takes 3 hours from €58.50, with 172 reviews and 5.0 stars. You walk to a vineyard above the village and taste three “Eroico” wines; the listing says the visit supports the restoration of dry-stone walls. It is a hike with some climbing, so it suits you if you are comfortable on terraces.
• The Vernazza wine tasting and vineyard tour is shorter at 1.5 hours from €75 (21 reviews, 4.9 stars). It lists three Cinque Terre DOC white wines, an IGT red and a Sciacchetrà.

A food walk in La Spezia

The Taste Cinque Terre food tour in La Spezia is a 3-hour guided walk from €85, with 57 reviews and 4.6 stars. It covers focaccia, farinata, pesto pasta, fried fish and gelato in the city, not in the villages. Useful on a day when you are based in La Spezia, for example before a train or ship departure.

Food on a boat or a day trip

Several tours include a tasting without being food tours. The boat tour with skipper and Ligurian focaccia lasts 2.5 hours from €85 (140 reviews, 4.8 stars). The small-group tour with limoncino is a full day by train, 8 hours from €72 with 693 reviews and 4.4 stars; the tasting is one stop in a sightseeing day, not the centre of it.

Are they worth the money?

On GetYourGuide the wine and food category in the area has 34 offers from €25, with a median of €82.50. The tours above sit between €58.50 and €110, so they are mid-range. A pesto class and a vineyard tasting are good value for what they add. Eating focaccia and drinking Sciacchetrà at a bar costs a fraction and is easy to do on your own. A tour pays off for the hands-on part, the vineyard visit and the explanation, not for the food alone.

Practical points

• Dietary needs. Pesto is made with nuts and cheese, and focaccia and pasta contain gluten. Ask the operator before booking if that matters to you.
• Children and alcohol. Minimum ages and what is poured for children are on each booking page.

For the wider picture see our wine and food tours page, and for how a food stop fits into a day on the coast, read Cinque Terre by boat or train.