Where to eat in Bologna when the guidebooks close

The first thing our guides tell travellers arriving in Bologna is to eat later than they think they should. The kitchens that matter open at eight and fill by half past.

Between the two towers and the covered market there are perhaps a dozen rooms where the pasta is rolled in the morning and the menu is written by hand. None of them take reservations more than a day ahead, and several take none at all. What follows is not a list of the best restaurants in the city. It is where the people who work here go when they finish.

Start at the market, not the menu

Mercato delle Erbe closes in the early afternoon and reopens as a place to drink. Ask the fishmonger where he eats on Sunday; the answer is usually a room with six tables and a grandmother at the pass.

“If the tagliatelle is cut wider than a shoelace, you are eating for tourists.”

Alessandro, guide in Emilia-Romagna since 2004

Our Emilia journeys build two evenings without a plan for exactly this reason. The guide will book one of them if you ask, and leave the other alone.