Hostaria Besugo, the real sea cooking of the harbour

I've already mentioned it in passing in the diary, calling it the beacon of sea cooking on the harbour. Now it's time to keep that promise and tell you about it properly, because the Hostaria Besugo, to my mind, is one of the places where, in Oneglia, they treat fish for what it is.

It sits on the harbour, under the arcades of Calata Cuneo, the row of arches that runs in front of the boats. You go in from the arcades, or from behind, from Via De Geneys at number 34: two faces of the same place. And as it goes around here, the location alone tells you everything. The fish, here, doesn't come from far away. It comes from right out front.

The sea cooking of the old days

What I like about Besugo is that it doesn't just play at being an elegant fish restaurant. It does real Ligurian sea cooking, the cooking of the families of the sea, the kind that few people at home still have the time to make.

There's the buridda, first of all: the traditional fish soup — langoustines, mussels, squid, all together in a broth that tastes of the sea, with bread to mop it up. It's one of those dishes that, on their own, tell you what kind of kitchen this is. And then there's the cuttlefish zimino with beans — zemin, as they call it here — a humble dish, the kind made so as not to throw anything away, and which, done well, is something to behold. These are the fish dishes the sea folk actually ate, not the ones invented for the menu.

The buridda, the traditional fish soup: langoustines, mussels and squid in broth, with bread to mop it up

The raw fish, when the fish is the right one

And then there's the raw fish. Tartares of the freshest fish, prawns, the catch of the day served just as it is, dressed with very little. It's the acid test of a fish restaurant: you can only do raw fish if it came in that day and it's the right fish, because there you can't hide behind the cooking. At Besugo they do it, and that alone says a lot.

On this I trust my friend Alessandro, who's a chef: it's exactly his idea of sea cooking — if the raw ingredient is the good one, the less you touch it the better. Some raw fish, a grill, a soup made the way it should be. The rest is little.

The raw prawn, served just as it is: the acid test of a fish restaurant

The open oven, the stone, the vaults

There's another thing that makes Besugo a fine place to be, beyond the fish. It's the room itself.

The indoor rooms have exposed stone walls and vaulted ceilings, that air of a harbour warehouse done up well, telling you where it came from. And then there's the open oven: while you wait, you watch them bring out the focaccia, the pinsa, the farinata. It's a detail I like, because it shows you that nothing arrives frozen from behind the scenes here: they make it right there, in front of you. Outside, under the arcades, there's the dehors on the harbour, and on summer evenings that's where you want to be, with the boats in front of you and the light coming down.

Running it all are Marco and Alessandra. Marco isn't even Ligurian by birth — he's from Lazio, and he's one of those extroverted hosts you remember — but the cooking he does is Ligurian to the bone. The name itself, "Besugo", is a Genoese joke: a besugo is at once a slightly naive person and a fish that takes the bait easily. A sign that puts you in a good mood before you've even gone in. It's no surprise the place made it into the Ristoranti della Tavolozza, which around here, for sea cooking, count for something.

How to go

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

Besugo is closed on Thursdays: plan accordingly, and when in doubt a phone call first doesn't hurt. It's a well-known place, especially with the dehors in summer, so book. About the bill, rest easy: it's serious sea cooking, and good fish has its price — but for a buridda made the way it should be, or for raw fish of the right kind, it's worth it. If instead you fancy a spartan osteria with the menu on a chalkboard, that's a different kind of evening, and I've already told you about that elsewhere.

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 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 Besugo, with some raw fish in front of you and the sea a couple of steps away.

Because in the end this is what I'm after, when I send someone to eat fish in Oneglia: a place where sea cooking is still the real thing, and where the fish, the harbour and the evening come back together — the way they should, on a coast that lives by the sea.