Bologna is a city famous for its cuisine, which is something when you consider how highly regarded Italian cuisine is in general.
I wanted to visit Bologna, but honestly knew nothing about it aside from some of the region’s famous foods. There’s the obvious Bolognese meat sauce, but other famous foods like Parmigiano-Reggiano, Prosciutto di Parma, and mortadella also originate from the region. I wanted to taste these and other delicious things in their region of origin, not to mention see how they’re made.
Fortunately, it’s very easy to visit Bologna and tick a lot of food-related boxes. Here are the details of what I did in Bologna: an amazing food tour and a fantastic cooking class.
The perfect Bologna food tour
Among the Emilia-Romagna region’s famous traditional products are numerous, but there are three big ones: Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, Prosciutto di Parma, and aceto balsamico tradizionale (traditional balsamic vinegar).
My goal was to see how all three of these things are made. Easier said than done, since they’re obviously made by entirely different producers. Given that this was supposed to be part of a vacation, it would have been sub-optimal to spend a bunch of time trying to travel between far-flung factories.
Surely there’s some kind of organized tour that would cover all three bases? As a matter of fact, there is: the Italian Days Bologna Food and Wine Factory Tour. This guided, small-group tour involves a visit to producers making all three of the traditional foods in question. I found it online, booked it weeks ahead of time, and was probably more excited for this than anything else planned for the trip to Italy.
Stop 1: Parmigiano-Reggiano
The tour started with us getting picked up at our hotel in Bologna early in the morning. From there, it was about an hour’s drive out into the countryside to the first stop on the tour: a Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese factory.
Visiting a Parmesan cheese factory was maybe the number one thing I wanted to do in Italy. I eat enough of the stuff at home, might as well see where it comes from.
The reason the food tour starts so early is because that’s exactly when the cheesemakers are doing their thing. It was perhaps 8:00 am when we went inside, and things were well underway.
Getting to see the process of cheesemaking was nice; getting to see thousands of wheels of cheese hanging out in a massive warehouse was even cooler.
Stop 2: Balsamic Vinegar of Modena
After the cheese tour was a short trip up the road to a family-run operation making traditional balsamic vinegar of Modena. I knew very little about how it was made beforehand, and this was an enlightening experience.
Traditional balsamic vinegar is made using a battery of several wooden barrels of diminishing sizes. At the beginning of the long process, each barrel is partially filled with a fermented grape mixture. The barrels are laid on their sides, with a cloth-covered opening at the top to allow evaporation.
After each year that passes, the smallest barrel—its contents having partially evaporated—is topped up from the second smallest. The second smallest is topped up from the third, and so on. The largest barrel is topped up with grapes from that year’s harvest. This process continues year after year, with the mixture in the smallest barrels becoming seriously concentrated.
Only after 12 years is vinegar from the smallest barrel eligible for the mark of approval as official DOP balsamic vinegar.
It’s traditional to start a new battery following a birth or a wedding, as something to pass down through the family. After all, 12 years is just the beginning—as part of the tour we were able to taste even 25-year-old vinegar (it was incredible).
After the tour of the small vinegar facility, we were treated to a full-on breakfast spread with wine, before heading to the next stop.
Stop 3: Prosciutto di Parma
The last and largest facility on the tour was a factory producing several forms of Prosciutto.
First off: this place smelled incredible. It was essentially an entire factory that smelled like different forms of bacon. It’s easy to see why, as parts of the tour took us through entire floors that were just Prosciuttos curing by the thousands.
Following this was the finale of the tour: a multi-course meal that included more of the foods from throughout the day, plus pasta and all sorts of other dishes (plus more wine).
The tour operator has a little kitchen and dining room right outside the Prosciutto facility, and it makes for an excellent end to an excellent day. This is one of the most highly-rated tourist activities in Bologna, and for good reason—I can’t recommend it enough.
A Bologna cooking class
A food-themed trip to Bologna wouldn’t be complete without some form of cooking class. And what food would be more appropriate to learn about than Ragù Bolognese?
We found a great cooking class in Bologna, offered by a great cooking teacher named Luigi. We ended up with a private 2-person class, which was a fantastic experience. Another easy recommendation if you’re in Bologna.
Luigi met us in the city centre, and showed us around the area a bit, while making several stops to purchase ingredients for the class.
During the class, which lasted a few hours, we made two kinds of fresh pasta: tagliatelle, to go with the Bolognese sauce, and tortelloni, which we would stuff with ricotta filling.
The class included an incredible 4 dishes: tagliatelle Bolognese, tortelloni in butter-sage sauce, arugula salad with shaved beef and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, and tiramisu for dessert. All of it delicious, and all of it a delight to learn about.
Don’t sleep on Bologna
Bologna may not be as popular as Rome or Naples or Florence, but I had a phenomenal time visiting it. Of course, I’m disproportionately interested in food-related stuff, and that’s Bologna’s wheelhouse—but it’s well worth the trip.
So many of Italy’s most famous foods originate from Bologna or nearby, and there’s nothing like tasting them and learning about them on their home turf.
Questions or comments? Leave ’em below. Want to read another travel story? Check out this story about spending 3 days in Florence.