Focacceria Patrone – Focaccia Genovese
Focaccia genovese — dimpled, olive-oil-drenched and impossibly light — is the bread that Genoese people eat for breakfast, dipped into a cappuccino without a trace of self-consciousness. Focacceria Patrone on Via Giustiniani in the centro storico is one of the old-school bakeries that still pulls trays from the oven at dawn, filling the caruggi with a warm, yeasty perfume.
What to Order
The classic focaccia genovese is the non-negotiable starting point: a large rectangle sold by weight (etto), glistening with Ligurian extra-virgin olive oil and coarse sea salt that has pooled in every finger-pressed dimple. Order a quarter kilo and eat it standing at the counter — that's how it's done.
From October to April, ask for focaccia di Recco col formaggio, a paper-thin unleavened version filled with molten crescenza cheese. It's a different beast entirely — crispy, lacey-edged and almost shockingly rich. The two focacce represent the full range of the Ligurian baking tradition.
The Wider Focaccia Culture
Virtually every bar and bakery in Genoa sells focaccia, but quality varies enormously. The benchmark is the Consorzio della Focaccia Genovese IGP standard, which specifies the exact dough hydration, oil quantity and baking temperature. Look for bakeries that bake continuously through the morning — fresh-from-the-oven focaccia at 8 am is a different food from the room-temperature slabs sitting under glass at noon.
For a broader Ligurian street-food crawl, combine focaccia with a paper cone of farinata (a chickpea-flour pancake baked in a wood-fired copper pan) from a nearby sciamadda — the old Genoese word for a street food shop with a wood-fired oven.
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