Campofilone: a walled village above the Adriatic, famous for its pasta

The name of Campofilone is spoken with reverence in Italian kitchens. This little hilltop village in the Marche, in the province of Fermo, gave the world the maccheroncini di Campofilone, threads of egg pasta so fine they almost melt, the first egg pasta in Italy to earn European IGP protection.

The thinnest pasta in Italy

Made only within the boundaries of the commune, under a strict code that demands seven to ten eggs per kilo of flour and no water at all, the maccheroncini are cut into strands less than a millimetre wide. Noble household records of the 18th century already praise them, the poet Giacomo Leopardi listed them among his favourite dishes, and since 1964 a national festival each August has drawn thousands to taste them with the traditional meat ragu.

An abbey village over the sea

Campofilone itself is an old Piceno settlement that grew around the Benedictine abbey of San Bartolomeo, recorded from 1066, and keeps the elliptical plan of a medieval walled village, entered through the Porta Marina beneath centuries-old pines. From its 200-metre hill the views sweep from the Sibillini mountains to the Adriatic, whose beaches at Ponte Nina are barely three kilometres away.

Where it is

Campofilone sits on the coast road between San Benedetto del Tronto and Fermo, about sixty kilometres south-east of Ancona, with its own stop on the Adriatic railway nearby.