COPPERWhat is the national dish of San Marino?
San Marino has no official national dish. The one most often cited is Torta Tre Monti, a round cake of thin wafers layered with chocolate-hazelnut cream and coated in chocolate, named after the three towers on Monte Titano. As a savoury answer, the piada, an unleavened flatbread of flour and lard, is the oldest and most widespread dish of the Sammarinese table.
Why San Marino has no clear national dish
San Marino is a microstate entirely surrounded by Italy, and its cooking is, frankly, the cooking of the Italian regions around it: Romagna first, then the Marche. Fresh egg pasta, ragù, broth, piadina and pork are shared across the border. Its main farm products are cheese, wine and livestock. There is no law or decree naming a Sammarinese national dish.
So there are two honest answers. Lists of national dishes name Torta Tre Monti, because it is the one food that exists only in San Marino. Ask what people in San Marino actually eat most, and the answer is the piada, which they share with Romagna.
What is Torta Tre Monti?
Torta Tre Monti, "three mountains cake", is a round wafer cake about 20 cm across. Thin waffled wafer discs are glued together with cocoa and hazelnut cream, and the whole cake is coated in dark chocolate. Nothing is baked: the dry snap of the wafers is the point, and a sponge would never give it.
Its name and its shape refer to Monte Titano and the Three Towers of San Marino that crown it. The cake is made commercially by La Serenissima, a bakery in Domagnano; sources disagree on its exact date of creation, from 1942 to the years after the Second World War. It carries San Marino's mark of origin for local craft products, and it is the country's best-known edible souvenir.
Our Torta Tre Monti recipe builds a home version:
- toast and chop hazelnuts, and stir half into chocolate hazelnut cream
- spread a thin layer of cream on each wafer disc, right to the edge, and stack them
- chill 2 hours so the layers stop sliding
- pour over dark chocolate melted with butter
- scatter the rest of the hazelnuts, chill again and slice cold with a warmed knife
The piada: San Marino's everyday dish
The piada is an unleavened flatbread of wheat flour, water, pork lard and salt; older versions included some corn flour. It is cooked for a few minutes over a high flame on a terracotta testo or a cast-iron plate. The Consorzio Terra di San Marino defines the local piada as an in-between: thicker than the piadina of Rimini, thinner than the ones of Cesena and Ravenna.
Our piada recipe works the dough until it stops sticking, rests it an hour in a cotton cloth, rolls discs 2 to 3 mm thick, pricks them all over and cooks them fast on a very hot griddle. The classic filling is stracchino, prosciutto crudo and rocket.
Across the border the same bread is the piadina romagnola; for Italy's own answer, see our article on the national dish of Italy. In the villages of San Marino's interior it is still part of the daily meal, not a tourist snack.
Passatelli and the shared kitchen of Romagna
Passatelli show how blurred the border is. They are one of the classic festive soups of Romagna, also made in the provinces of Pesaro-Urbino and Ancona, and they are just as much at home in San Marino. A firm dough of breadcrumbs, Parmigiano and egg, scented with lemon zest and nutmeg, is pushed through a perforated iron straight into simmering broth and cooked about 2 minutes, until the strands float. The recipe probably descends from tardura, a Romagna soup of egg, grated cheese and breadcrumbs traditionally given to women after childbirth.
Other dishes follow the same calendar as the surrounding region:
- Christmas Eve: pasta and chickpeas
- Christmas Day: cappelletti in capon broth
- Winter: beans with pork rinds, and polenta served on a wooden board with sausage sauce
- Easter: roast lamb with potatoes
- Sundays: tagliatelle with ragù
Other sweets to know from San Marino
Torta Tre Monti has relatives. Torta Titano, named after the mountain, layers square wafers with cocoa, coffee and hazelnut cream under dark chocolate. Bustrengo is the old peasant cake of stale bread, corn flour, raisins, dried figs, honey and lemon zest, baked in a tin and traditional at Christmas.
Verretta is a chocolate of hazelnuts, praline and pieces of wafer, named after the crossbow bolt, a nod to San Marino's old tradition of crossbowmen. Cacciatello is a set dessert of milk, sugar and eggs, close to crème caramel.
All three of our Sammarinese recipes are on our page about the food of San Marino. For the wider family of kitchens it belongs to, see our guide to Western European food.
The recipes
- Torta tre monti🇸🇲 San Marino · 3 hours and 35 minutes
Piada🇸🇲 San Marino · 1 hour and 45 minutes
Passatelli🇸🇲 San Marino · 40 minutes
Questions people ask
Does San Marino have an official national dish?
No. Torta Tre Monti is the dish most often named as national, while the piada flatbread is the most widespread savoury food.
Is Sammarinese food different from Italian food?
Only slightly. San Marino is surrounded by Italy, and its cooking is very close to that of Romagna and the Marche; the piada and passatelli are eaten on both sides of the border.
What does Torta Tre Monti mean?
It means "three mountains cake", a reference to the three peaks and towers of Monte Titano.
Who makes Torta Tre Monti?
It is produced commercially by La Serenissima, a bakery in Domagnano, San Marino, and sold in pastry shops and local product stores.
Is the piada the same as the piadina?
It is the same kind of lard flatbread. The Sammarinese piada is defined as thicker than the Rimini piadina and thinner than those of Cesena and Ravenna.
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