Corsican food is not French food and it is not Italian food.
It is mountain cooking from a poor island, built on three things: pigs that live half wild in the chestnut woods, sheep and goats, and the chestnut itself. Almost everything on a proper Corsican menu comes from that, and almost none of it looks like what you get in Nice.
This is the part of the island I would come back for. Where it sits in the wider picture is in my complete guide to Corsica.
The charcuterie
The whole thing rests on the Nustrale, a native Corsican pig that runs half wild in the chestnut and oak woods and eats what it finds. Slow growing, dark fatty meat, and completely different from industrial pork.
Figatellu is the one to order. A U shaped liver sausage seasoned with garlic, spices and red wine, dried and smoked over hardwood, dark to almost black. Traditionally winter food, grilled over embers and eaten with chestnut polenta or simply on bread. Strong, mineral, faintly bitter, and not remotely subtle.
Alongside it:
- Lonzu, cured loin, mild and delicate
- Coppa, cured shoulder or neck, fattier and sweeter
- Prisuttu, the dry cured ham, aged a year or more
A word of caution worth taking seriously. Real figatellu is a fresh sausage and must be cooked through. Restaurants know this. If you buy it to take home, cook it properly.
Brocciu, and the season nobody tells you about
The island cheese, and the one ingredient that appears in everything.
Brocciu is made from the whey left over from other cheeses, sheep’s or goat’s, reheated with fresh milk. Soft, white, faintly sweet, somewhere between ricotta and fromage blanc but richer than both. It goes into omelettes with mint, into stuffed vegetables, into cannelloni, and into the pudding below.
Here is the thing: brocciu is only made from December to July, because it follows the milking season. If you are in Corsica in August and brocciu is on the menu, it is either frozen or it is not brocciu. An honest restaurant will tell you. It is a genuinely useful question to ask, and asking it marks you out as someone who has read something.
Pudding, and the digestif
Fiadone is the island dessert: brocciu, eggs, sugar and a great deal of lemon zest, baked without any pastry. Dense, light, not very sweet, and much better than that description makes it sound.
Canistrelli are the biscuits, dry and crumbly and made with white wine, flavoured with aniseed, lemon or almond. They keep forever, which was the point, and they are the standard thing to bring home.
Chestnut flour turns up in bread, in polenta, in cake and in beer. Pietra, the island’s chestnut beer, is amber and slightly sweet and genuinely good.
Then the digestif, which will arrive whether or not you ask. Myrtle liqueur is dark purple, made from the berries, sweet and resinous and tasting exactly like the maquis smells. There is also a chestnut liqueur and a citron one.
The wine
Better than its reputation, and it barely leaves the island, which is why you have not had it.
Patrimonio in the north is the oldest appellation and the most serious. Reds from Nielluccio, which is essentially Sangiovese and tastes like it, structured and savoury. Whites from Vermentino, crisp and slightly saline.
Ajaccio on the west coast makes reds from Sciaccarellu, lighter and more peppery. Rosé is everywhere and taken seriously rather than treated as a holiday drink.
Order the local bottle. In a village restaurant a carafe of the house red costs very little and will be from within thirty kilometres.
Where to eat, by type
In the harbour towns, the quayside restaurants in Calvi, Porto-Vecchio and Bonifacio are pleasant and priced for the view. Fine for a first night, rarely the best food.
One street back is where the locals eat, and where the charcuterie and the stews are better. This is a reliable rule on this island.
In the villages, look for anywhere describing itself as serving cuisine corse rather than cuisine française. Menus are short, the meat is local, and it will cost half what the quay does.
A ferme auberge is the thing to seek out: a working farm serving a fixed menu of what it produces, usually several courses, usually needing a phone call ahead. This is the best eating on the island by a distance.
What it costs
A carafe of house wine is €8 to €15. A plate of charcuterie to share, €14 to €22. Main courses in a village restaurant, €16 to €26, and considerably more on a quay in August. A ferme auberge fixed menu runs €30 to €45 for several courses.
Dinner for two with wine at a good, unfussy place lands between €70 and €110.
The markets, and building a picnic
The best lunch on this island costs about eight euros and you assemble it yourself.
Île-Rousse has the finest covered market on the north coast, in a stone-columned hall on the main square, mornings only. Ajaccio’s market on the Place Foch runs daily in season and is the biggest. Bastia and Porto-Vecchio both have good weekly ones.
What to buy: a piece of coppa or lonzu cut off the piece rather than pre-packed, a tomme corse or a fresh sheep’s cheese, bread, tomatoes, and a jar of confiture de figue or chestnut honey. Add a bottle of Vermentino from the same stall that sold you the cheese.
The honey is genuinely worth carrying home. Corsican honey is an AOP with several distinct varieties by season, and the spring maquis and autumn chestnut ones taste nothing like each other.
Vacuum-packed charcuterie travels. The producers at the markets will do it, and it is the one souvenir from here worth the suitcase space.
Read also
Where to Stay in Corsica | Calvi and the Balagne | Victoria’s Complete Guide to Corsica
Frequently Asked Questions
What food is Corsica famous for?
Charcuterie from the native Nustrale pig, especially figatellu, a smoked liver sausage grilled over embers, plus lonzu, coppa and prisuttu. Also brocciu, a fresh whey cheese used in everything from omelettes to the fiadone cheesecake, and chestnut flour in bread, polenta and beer.
What is brocciu and when can you get it?
A soft fresh cheese made from reheated whey, sheep’s or goat’s, somewhere between ricotta and fromage blanc. It is only produced from December to July, following the milking season, so brocciu on an August menu is frozen rather than fresh.
What should you drink in Corsica?
Patrimonio in the north is the oldest appellation, making structured reds from Nielluccio and crisp whites from Vermentino. Ajaccio makes lighter, peppery reds from Sciaccarellu. Pietra, the chestnut beer, and myrtle liqueur as a digestif are both worth trying.
Is Corsican food French or Italian?
Neither. It is mountain cooking built on half wild pigs, sheep, goats and chestnuts, closer in spirit to inland Italian food than to French cuisine, but distinct from both. The language is closer to Tuscan than French, and the food follows.
How much does dinner cost in Corsica?
Roughly €70 to €110 for two with wine at a good but unfussy restaurant. Main courses run €16 to €26 in a village, more on a harbour quay in August. A ferme auberge fixed menu of several courses is €30 to €45 a head.
