Osteria Didù, the down-to-earth Michelin of Porto Maurizio

When you hear "Michelin guide," you often picture something else entirely: the heavy table linen, the sommelier who corrects your pronunciation, the bill that arrives on a little tray and gives you a heart attack. Osteria Didù, in Porto Maurizio, is the proof that the Michelin can also be something else. It's a down-to-earth Michelin guide place. And for me, as a local, that's exactly what makes it special.

It sits on via Cascione, one of the loveliest streets in Porto, the pedestrian one that runs through the old palazzi of the historic centre. You'll find it at number 70, and the location is easy to remember: it's opposite the Teatro Cavour, the old theatre of Porto Maurizio. You sit in the veranda out front, with the theatre in front of your eyes and the quiet coming and going of the pedestrian street around you. Like that, even before you order, you're in the right place.

A Michelin that doesn't intimidate

Osteria Didù is in the Michelin guide with the Bib Gourmand which — for anyone who doesn't speak the jargon — is the recognition the guide gives to places where you eat well and pay a fair price. It isn't the star, it's a different thing: it's the stamp of honest cooking at an honest price. And that's exactly what Didù is.

Because inside here there's nothing built to impress. It's an osteria: small, a single room, a handful of tables, pale walls with flowers painted on them, the shelves with the bottles at the back. The owner is Omar, who has years of cooking behind him — he worked on boats too, around the Mediterranean — and who today is right there, in the middle of the room, running his own place. It isn't the restaurant for the big occasion. It's the place you go on any old evening and eat something done the way it should be.

One thing, as an onegliese, I'll say straight away. Didù is in Porto Maurizio, and I go all the same, gladly. I've already told you about the old rivalry between Oneglia and Porto, but in front of a well-made plate certain borders count for little. And this place turns out plenty of well-made plates.

The dining room of Osteria Didù: a handful of tables, pale walls with painted flowers and the bottle shelves at the back. Behind the counter, Omar.

Land and sea on the same menu

And here I come to the thing I like most about Didù, the one that, to my mind, best captures what Ligurian cooking really is.

Here land and sea sit on the same menu. Without asking you to choose. It's something that escapes outsiders, but in Liguria it's the norm: we're a land squeezed between the sea and the mountains, and our cooking takes from both. It rises from the harbour and comes down from the valleys, and it meets on the plate. At Didù you see this clearly, because you find the two souls side by side.

From the sea, the stuffed mussels — the ones with the savoury filling and the breadcrumbs, a classic that people round here know how to make and that, at Didù, is one of the dishes people come back for. And the anchovies, the poor man's fish of the Ponente, and the brandacujun, the whipped stockfish that's one of the symbols of Imperia.

From the land — and here my eyes light up — the borage ravioli with meat sauce (ravioli di borragine al tocco). They're homemade ravioli, filled with borage, the wild herb that grows here and finds its way into half of Ligurian cooking, dressed with the tocco, the traditional meat sauce. It's a pure dish of the land, the kind I talk about when I write about where to eat inland food and the hinterland that rises behind the coast. And you find it here, a stone's throw from the harbour, on the same menu as the mussels. This is the best of Liguria, and it's why a place like this speaks to me: it doesn't make you choose between the sea and the mountains. It puts them both on your plate.

Another corner of the room, with the tables laid by the window onto the pedestrian street.

Local ingredients, in season

The other thing that makes the difference is what's inside the dishes. Omar works with local, seasonal ingredients: fish from the Ponente when the sea gives it, vegetables and produce from the valleys behind. It means the menu isn't the same all year round — it changes with what's around — and it means that when something comes out of the kitchen, it's because right then it's genuinely good.

It's the same philosophy you find in the serious osterie round here: you buy what the day offers, and you cook it simply. No dishes built for the photo, no long menu identical twelve months out of twelve. Good raw ingredients, treated with respect. For me it's the only way of doing cooking of the territory that makes sense, and Didù does it with the ease of someone who has nothing to prove.

How to go

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

Osteria Didù is closed on Tuesdays: make a note of it. It's a small place, with few covers, and by now a well-known one — the Michelin makes itself felt — so book, and book ahead, especially in summer. You do it by phone. And bear in mind it's an osteria, not a canteen: you go to sit down and enjoy it slowly, not to eat and run.

From Stella sul Mare it's nothing. Oneglia and Porto Maurizio are the two sides of the same town, separated only by the stream: take the car, or even just the seafront walk if you feel like walking, and in a few minutes you're on via Cascione. If you'd like a wander first, I've already told you about Porto Maurizio: walk up to the Parasio, come down into the centre, and close the evening at the table at Didù.

A Michelin guide place that doesn't intimidate, land and sea on the same menu, among the palazzi of Porto opposite the theatre. If you want to understand what real Ligurian cooking is — the kind that doesn't choose between the mountain and the sea — this is the right place.