Chez Braccioforte, my father's fish place

There are places I didn't discover myself. My father handed them down to me, the way you hand down something that belongs to the family. Chez Braccioforte, on the Oneglia harbour, is one of those: his fish restaurant, the one he used to go to, the one I like to come back to when I'm home.

It sits under the arcades of Calata Cuneo, the row of arches that runs along the Oneglia harbour, facing the boats. You'll find it at number 33, and the location alone tells you everything you need to know: the fish, here, doesn't come from far away. It comes from right out front.

Since 1892, always the same family

The first thing I like about this place is that it hasn't invented anything. It's just always been there. It opened in 1892 — more than a hundred and thirty years ago — under the name Osteria della Marina, and the old original sign is still kept, looked after the way you look after something you care about. Since then it's been passed down from father to son: the same family, five generations, the same trade.

In a world where restaurants open and close within a single season, something like this is rare. It means that someone, for more than a century, has got up every morning to do the same thing done well. And you feel it when you sit down: the dining room has real tablecloths, the right amount of space between one table and the next, that slightly old-world air you hardly find anymore. It isn't an eat-and-run place. It's the place where you sit down and stay.

The dining room at Chez Braccioforte: white tablecloths, pale chairs and the barrel-vaulted ceiling, with that maritime blue that's the signature of the place.

Fish bought at the auction, right out front

And here I come to the point, the reason my father went.

The fish, at Braccioforte, is bought every day at the auction. That isn't a menu turn of phrase: the fish auction is right there, at the Oneglia harbour, a stone's throw from the arcades. The boats come in, they unload, and the catch changes hands. From Oneglia to Calata Cuneo, from the net to the plate, it's a matter of metres. That's why you won't find the same long menu here all year round: you find what the sea gave that day, cooked for what it is.

And the cooking is the honest kind, the kind that doesn't hide behind complications. Ligurian fish, treated with respect: the raw fish, the fish pasta, the grills, the oven-baked dishes. No frills, no plates built for the photo. Just good raw ingredients and hands that have always known what to do with them. It was exactly my father's idea of sea cooking: if the fish is the right fish, the rest is little.

A table laid at Braccioforte facing the Oneglia harbour: the blue-striped glasses, a boat moored alongside and the breakwater behind.

The harbour at sunset

But it isn't only the plate. It's where you are while you eat it.

Eating on the Oneglia harbour as the evening comes down is one of those things that, as an onegliese, I take for granted and then realise are anything but. The fishing boats moored, the masts of the sails, the light turning orange on the water, the arcades behind you. There's a quiet coming and going — people strolling, people sitting down for a drink — and that harbour sound that's the soundtrack of my whole childhood. They bring you the fish, you pour yourself a white from the Ponente, and in front of you is exactly the sea that fish came out of.

My father understood this. He didn't choose Braccioforte just because you eat well. He chose it because it's the place where the fish, the harbour and the evening come back together, the way they should on a coast that lives by the sea.

How to go

A few practical tips, from someone who cares about not sending you off on the wrong foot.

Braccioforte opens in the evening, and on Mondays it's closed: plan accordingly. It's a well-known place and it has its tables, so book — you do it by phone. And bear in mind it isn't the spartan trattoria: it's a proper restaurant, with attentive service and prices a little above the Imperia average. But it's serious fish, bought at the auction right out front, in a place that's been doing it since 1892. For an evening like this, it's worth it.

From Stella sul Mare it's a walk. The house is a few minutes from Calata Cuneo: in the evening you go down to the harbour, slip under the arcades, and you've arrived. If you'd like a wander and a drink first, watching the boats, I've already told you about Calata Cuneo: make it your evening on the harbour, and close it at the table at Braccioforte.

Me, in the meantime, when I'm home that's where I like to return. I sit down, let whoever is with me have the fish of the day brought to them, watch the harbour slowly fade out, and for a moment it's one of those dinners with my father again.