Osteria dai Pippi, in Borgo Marina

There's a simple test for working out whether a place really cooks well: look at the length of the menu. The shorter it is, the better. At the Pippi, in Borgo Marina, the menu lives on a chalkboard and changes with the seasons. Shorter than that is hard to find.

The osteria is in Borgo Marina, the old fishermen's quarter of Porto Maurizio, the one at the foot of the Parasio, the hill with its houses squeezed one against the other. Today it's the area of the nice places to go out, but the smell of the sea has stayed the same. The address is Via dei Pellegrini 9. Let me say something straight away that, for an onegliese, isn't a given: it's in Porto, on the other side of the Impero stream, and I go all the same. Gladly. I've already told you about the old rivalry between Oneglia and Porto, and this place is the proof that certain borders, in front of a well-made plate, count for nothing.

Inside it's small. A few tables, nothing staged, the air of those osterie where the owner recognises you the second time round. The kitchen has been run for more than twenty years by Ivano, whom everyone here calls Ivo: Ligurian cooking, but with a head on its shoulders, renewed without betraying it.

The entrance to Pippi and the tables outside in the shade: number 9, Via dei Pellegrini

And here I come to the part closest to my heart.

The bread, the focaccia and the olive oil

As soon as you sit down, while you're still choosing, the bread arrives. And the focaccia. Made by them, not bought in. And the local olive oil arrives, the good stuff, in a little dish or to pour straight onto the focaccia while it's still warm.

Now let me confess a weakness. I won't tell you how much bread and how much focaccia I eat while waiting for the courses. It's a serious problem. You arrive with all the best intentions, you tell yourself that today you'll go easy, and then you find this house-made focaccia in front of you, with that oil that tastes of taggiasca olives and nothing else, and your hand moves on its own. By the time the first course turns up, half the basket has already vanished. And I'll admit it's the very same weakness that gets me at Dalla Padella alla Brace, the other Oneglia osteria where they make their own bread: I start on the basket and reach the first course already half full, every single time.

It isn't a fault of the place. It's a compliment. It means that even the simplest thing, the bread that in so many places gets dumped on you just to fill the table, here they make with care. And the oil makes the difference. It isn't just any oil: it's the oil of these valleys, sweet, light, the one that at our house is never missing. If you get the urge to take a bottle home, I've already written about where to buy it, because a good oil is the first thing that changes everything, in the kitchen and on a slice of bread.

The menu that (almost) never changes

Now I have to be honest, because here we say things as they are.

I don't go to the Pippi all that often. And the reason is exactly what makes it special: the menu is very short, and it changes little. A few dishes, all seasonal, chosen one by one. It's a deliberate choice, and it's the right one. It means they buy what the market gives at that moment, and they don't invent anything to fill up pages. It means that every plate coming out of the kitchen is something they can do brilliantly, because they've always made it with the same raw ingredient.

The flip side is that, if you go back a month later, you'll probably find again what you'd already eaten. That's why I go now and then, not every week. I wait until the urge comes back, and when I return it's almost always another season, with different dishes on the board.

I like this. In a world where everyone wants the long menu, the laminated card with fifty dishes and photos, an osteria that offers you four things and that's it is almost an act of courage. They're trusting you. And they don't let you down.

Stockfish with potatoes and olives, one of the fish dishes that turn up on the board now and then

Among the things that turn up on the board, depending on the season, there are gnocchi, the odd ravioli, fish dishes when there's fish. My absolute favourite, when I find it, is the gnocchi al Castelmagno: I know, Castelmagno is from Piedmont and has nothing to do with Liguria — but the dish is something else, and if I see it on the board my mind's already made up. It isn't there all year, of course: it comes and goes with the season, like everything here. As for the rest, I won't give you the list, because next time it'll be different anyway. That's exactly the beauty of it.

Gnocchi al Castelmagno with truffle: my favourite, when I find it on the board

How to go

There are few covers and the place is well known, so book. You do it by phone, and bear in mind that on the other end they answer in Italian, as is only right in an osteria like this.

From Stella sul Mare it's nothing: Oneglia and Porto Maurizio are the two sides of the same town, separated only by that stream. Take the car, or even just the walk along the seafront if you fancy stretching your legs, and in a few minutes you're in Borgo Marina.

One last thing, from an onegliese to whoever turns up here. Don't go to the Pippi in a hurry. It isn't an eat-and-run place. It's the place where you sit down, let them bring you the bread, enjoy it with the oil, and wait calmly for those few dishes to come out of the kitchen, made the way they should be. If you're in a hurry, go elsewhere. If instead you want to understand what a kitchen that chooses quality over quantity means, you're in the right place.

Me, in the meantime, I'm checking I haven't finished off the whole basket again before the first course.