Places: Trattoria del Caveoso — Matera
Pasta in the Stone
In Matera, food doesn’t just arrive at the table — it emerges from the rock.
Trattoria del Caveoso sits deep in the Sasso Caveoso district, one of the oldest parts of the city carved into pale tufa stone. To enter is to step into a piece of living architecture: vaulted ceilings, soft lamps against rough walls, and that quiet echo you only find underground. It feels less like a restaurant and more like Matera itself serving you dinner.
The space alone would make it worth visiting, but what makes the Caveoso special is how faithfully it turns Lucanian tradition into flavour. This is not a restaurant chasing trends; it’s one that asks what Basilicata really tastes like — wheat, peppers, cheese, and time.
History and Setting
The Sassi of Matera have been continuously inhabited since prehistoric times, and the Caveoso quarter preserves that memory better than anywhere else. The trattoria occupies one of these ancient rock houses, transformed into a dining room but still breathing its original rhythm.
Family-run and deeply local, it began as a simple kitchen serving the neighbourhood and slowly became one of Matera’s best-known addresses. Over the years it’s kept the same formula: generous food, warm service, and no attempt to polish away the cave’s imperfections. The restaurant’s identity is inseparable from its walls — you eat surrounded by history, candlelight, and the faint scent of the stone cooling at night.
The Pasta of the Caveoso
The menu reads like a love letter to Basilicata. Each dish connects to a local ingredient or old custom, yet nothing feels museum-like.
There’s the cavatelli con peperoni cruschi, a cornerstone of Lucanian cooking: handmade cavatelli tossed with the region’s famous dried red peppers, fried until crisp, and finished with grated cacioricotta and toasted breadcrumbs. The result is a clash of textures — sweet, smoky, crunchy, creamy — that tells you everything about the land in a single bite.
Another favourite is strascinate con cime di rapa, the hand-dragged pasta paired with bitter turnip tops, anchovy, garlic, and, again, those red peppers that show up everywhere in Matera’s kitchens. Locals claim that no two households make the dish the same way; at Caveoso it’s perfectly balanced — earthy, sharp, and deeply comforting.
On cooler evenings, orecchiette alla materana appears with sausage, cardoncelli mushrooms, and cherry tomatoes, while the house special, paccheri del casaro, folds caciocavallo cheese and crushed pistachios into a creamy sauce, proving that Basilicata can be indulgent too.
Nothing feels rushed here. The pastas arrive in earthenware bowls, the sauces clinging thickly, the aromas carrying that faint scent of toasted grain that comes only from fresh dough.
Why It Belongs in Pasta Love
Because it captures what Basilicata really is — a dialogue between stone and wheat, simplicity and depth. Trattoria del Caveoso isn’t trying to impress; it’s trying to remember. In a world that often forgets where food comes from, this restaurant quietly keeps Matera’s memory alive, one plate of cavatelli at a time.
Fun Facts
- “The Cave Keeps Cool.” In summer, the inside of the restaurant stays naturally chilled thanks to the rock walls — locals joke that the cave has better air-conditioning than most hotels.
- A Perennial Favourite. The restaurant has held a 4.4-star average for more than a decade, making it one of the most consistently praised spots in Matera.
- Angela at the Door. Many TripAdvisor reviews mention the owner, Angela, greeting guests personally and remembering returning diners by name.
- Tourist vs. Local Tables. One reviewer swore locals got the “secret cave room” at the back, where hugs were exchanged with the chef before the wine arrived.
- Orange by the Bucket. A famous review called their orange dessert “so good you could eat it by the bucket.”
- Pasta Praise. Another traveller wrote: “The pasta here was the best we ate in our entire week in Italy.”
- Peperoni Cruschi Everywhere. Even the side dishes list them separately — three crispy peppers as their own course, just to remind you what region you’re in.
