The food here is Lucanian, and if you order it as though you were in Puglia you will eat well and miss the point entirely.
Basilicata is the poorer, emptier region next door to Puglia, and its cooking comes from that: bread, pulses, dried peppers, offcuts, things that keep. It is peasant food that never apologised, and in Matera it is served in rooms cut out of rock, which does no harm at all.
Here is what to order, why it exists, and where to find it. The wider trip planning is in my complete guide to Matera.
The bread with a name
Pane di Matera has protected geographical status, and locals are entirely serious about it.
Durum wheat semolina, a natural sourdough starter, and a shape you will recognise once you have seen it: tall, with a horned or humped top, a crust like a shell and a deep yellow open crumb. Traditionally baked in enormous communal ovens, stamped with the family’s mark so the right loaf came home.
It was built to last a week, because families walked out to the fields with it. That is also why so much of the local cooking is designed around bread that is no longer fresh.
Ask for it toasted with oil at breakfast and you have understood the town.
The pepper that shatters
Peperoni cruschi are the signature of the region and the thing you will still be thinking about.
Sweet red peppers from further south in Basilicata, dried in the sun on long strings, then dropped into very hot oil for a few seconds. They come out glassy, deep red and so brittle that they break like a crisp. Not hot, faintly sweet, intensely peppery.
They arrive as a plate of their own, crumbled over pasta, scattered on baccalà, or folded through pulses. Order them once on their own so you know what they taste like, then enjoy finding them on everything else.
The rest of what to order
Crapiata is a slow-cooked soup of chickpeas, lentils, fava beans, barley and potatoes, traditionally made in early August from what was left at the end of the year’s stores. It is the most Lucanian thing on any menu.
Cialledda is a bread salad, which is what you invent when the bread is too good to throw away: stale pane di Matera, tomato, onion, basil, oil, vinegar. There is a warm winter version too.
Fave e cicoria, broad bean purée with wild chicory, is the other regional staple, and it is better than that description suggests.
Cavatelli and orecchiette both turn up, usually with cruschi, with turnip tops, or with a plain tomato sauce.
For wine, this is Aglianico del Vulture country, a serious dark red grown on volcanic soil to the north. It is the region’s best known bottle and it is very good.
Where people actually eat
Matera divides into three tiers, and it is worth knowing which one you are booking, because a cave room can mean a paper tablecloth or a tasting menu and the photographs look similar.
The traditional one. Trattoria del Caveoso is the straightforward local favourite: a cave room, hearty portions, regional cheeses, pasta and grilled meats done properly, and a terrace open in the summer months. Busy, so book or arrive when it opens.
Alongside it, La Lopa is small, also carved in, and strong on exactly the dishes above including crapiata and fave e cicoria. Pane & Pomodoro has a terrace, which in this town is a real asset. Alle Fornaci near the main square is the more polished version of the same thing.
The ambitious one. Baccanti sits either in a cave room or on a stone terrace over the ravine, and cooks Lucanian ingredients with a contemporary edge. This is the special occasion booking for most people, and the terrace at dusk is the reason.
The Michelin one. Vitantonio Lombardo holds Matera’s only star, in a restored tufa cave where the rock has been left exposed rather than plastered over. Tasting menus run at five, seven or ten courses, with an à la carte broad enough to build your own. The cooking is Lucanian at heart and then plays: liquid ricotta ravioli with sea urchin and cinnamon, a dish called I dropped the egg in the garden.
It is the only restaurant here that needs booking well in advance rather than the day before.
Beyond all of those, the rule that has never failed me: if the room is full of people speaking Italian at eight thirty, it is not a tourist restaurant, because tourists eat at seven.
What it costs, and when to turn up
Basilicata is not an expensive region and Matera has not yet been priced like a famous one.
A trattoria dinner with a pasta, a secondo, house wine and water lands in a comfortable middle band, well below what the equivalent evening costs on the Amalfi Coast or in Florence. The ambitious places sit a tier above that, and the tasting menus a tier above again, but even the star is modest by the standards of northern Italy.
Lunch is cheaper and often better value than dinner, and in July and August it is also the meal that gets you indoors and out of the worst of the heat.
On timing: kitchens open around half past seven in the evening and the town eats late. Book for eight thirty if you want the room at its best and seven if you want a table without booking at all. At lunch, one o’clock is the centre of it.
One habit worth copying. Order the bread course seriously rather than treating it as something that arrives while you wait. In a town that built its entire cuisine around a loaf, the bread is the dish.
A note on eating in caves
Nearly every restaurant in the Sassi is in a cave, and after two days you stop noticing.
Two practical points. The rooms are cool, which in August is the reason to eat inside rather than out. And they are often several flights down from the nearest street, so if stairs are a problem, ask when you book.
Read also: the best things to do in Matera, a Matera itinerary, and my complete guide to Matera.
Frequently Asked Questions
What food is Matera known for?
Pane di Matera, a protected durum wheat bread with a thick crust and a yellow crumb, and peperoni cruschi, dried sweet peppers flash-fried until they shatter. Beyond those, crapiata soup, cialledda bread salad, and fave e cicoria, broad bean purée with wild chicory.
What are peperoni cruschi?
Sweet red peppers from Basilicata, sun-dried on strings then dropped into hot oil for a few seconds until they turn glassy and brittle. They are not spicy. They are served alone as a snack, crumbled over pasta and salt cod, or stirred through pulses.
Is the food in Matera the same as Puglian food?
No. Matera is in Basilicata, and the cooking is Lucanian: more pulses, more bread, more dried peppers, and generally poorer and older in origin than its Puglian neighbour. The two share some pasta shapes, which is where the confusion comes from.
What wine should you drink in Matera?
Aglianico del Vulture, a dark, serious red grown on volcanic soil in the north of Basilicata. It is the region’s best known wine and pairs naturally with the heavier pulse and bread dishes.
Do you need to book restaurants in Matera?
Yes, for the well known ones, particularly in the evening and in high season. Most are cave rooms with limited covers. It is also worth confirming access if stairs are a concern, since many sit several flights below the nearest street.
