What to Eat in Matera: Pane di Matera, Peperoni Cruschi, and Lucanian Cuisine

Matera sits in Basilicata — the instep of Italy’s boot — and its food is among the most ancient in Italy. The cave dwellings (sassi) were inhabited for 9,000 years, and the food reflects a peasant tradition shaped by extreme poverty, limited resources, and an extraordinary landscape.

What to Eat

Pane di Matera — the city’s most famous product. A DOP-protected sourdough bread with a thick, crackly crust and a yellow crumb (made from durum wheat semolina). Baked in wood-fired ovens; a loaf can weigh 1–2 kilograms and stays fresh for a week. The flavour is complex from the long fermentation. Buy it from local bakeries; it’s genuinely different from any other Italian bread.

Peperoni cruschi — dried, crispy red peppers of the Senise variety. Fried briefly in olive oil until they become crunchy and sweet. Eaten as a snack, crumbled over pasta, or used to garnish baccalà. The defining flavour of Lucanian cooking. The peppers are dried on strings in September and kept through winter.

Lagane e ceci — an ancient pasta (lagane are wide, flat strips, the ancestor of lasagne) with chickpeas, garlic, olive oil, and chilli. One of the oldest recorded pasta dishes in Italy — Romans ate it. No tomato; no meat. Pure peasant food.

Strascinati — hand-shaped pasta dragged across a surface to create a rough, irregular shape. Similar to orecchiette but more irregular. Served with ragù, with peperoni cruschi, or with a simple garlic and olive oil sauce.

Rafanata — a frittata made with grated horseradish, eggs, pecorino, and pork crackling. A Lucanian winter dish eaten on the day of pig slaughter. Strong, earthy, unusual.

Agnello lucano — lamb from the Lucanian plateau. Slow-roasted or braised with potatoes and wild herbs. The grazing land of Basilicata produces lean, flavourful lamb. A Sunday dish in Matera.

Baccalà alla lucana — salt cod with peperoni cruschi, olives, capers, and olive oil. The Lucanian version of a pan-Italian dish — the peperoni cruschi are the distinguishing element.

Where to Eat

The sassi — the cave districts — have restaurants, some in actual cave settings. Quality varies; the location premium is real but the best restaurants in the sassi are genuinely good. The streets of the Civita (the hill between the two sassi) have the most concentrated choices.

For the most authentic eating, the restaurants away from the sassi in the 20th-century Matera (the upper town around Piazza Vittorio Veneto) are used by locals and generally cheaper.

Wine

Aglianico del Vulture — the great wine of Basilicata. Made from Aglianico grapes grown on the volcanic slopes of Mount Vulture (50 kilometres north of Matera). Dark, tannic, and long-lived — Italy’s answer to Barolo in structure, if not in prestige. The DOCG version requires 5 years of ageing. A serious wine for a serious food region.

Matera DOC — a newer appellation producing Primitivo and Merlot-based reds from the limestone plateau around the city. Accessible and well-priced.