The Vara Valley is one of the most rewarding areas of Liguria for a serious eater. The cooking is rustic rather than refined: chestnut-flour pastas like picagge and testaroli (the latter cooked on cast-iron discs, testi), porcini in season, wild boar stews, sheep's-milk cheeses from the small organic farms above Varese Ligure, and the local focaccia con uvetta — a sweet raisin focaccia served as a snack or breakfast. Drink the rough local reds from Bolano and the white bianchetto genovese.
Restaurants worth looking out for include the trattorias in Varese Ligure around the round borough and the agriturismi scattered along the side roads, where the meat and vegetables on your plate come from the farm you parked in.