Five Classic Italian Dishes Named After Famous People

Some chefs are like artists, finding inspiration for new recipes by trying new techniques. Others are like scientists, experimenting with ingredients and spices until they achieve the desired culinary reaction. Still others are motivated by a chance meeting.

Whether driven by love, necessity, respect or admiration, we thought you'd find these pasta dishes, named after famous people, quite a-muse-ing!

Carpaccio

Consensus awards Countess Amalia Nani Mocenigo for the creation of the thin-sliced, raw-beef appetizer. The Countess, following her physician's advice to avoid cooked meat, requested a dish to meet her rather odd dietary needs while visiting Harry's Bar in Venice in 1950.

The paper-thin dish was a hit, so the owner of Harry's Bar, Giuseppe Cipriani, named the appetizer “Carpaccio” after his favorite painter, Vittore Carpaccio, a 15th century artist known for paintings using dramatic reds.

Pizza Margherita

As legend goes, while visiting Naples in 1889, the Queen of Savoy (wife to King Umberto I), having grown tired of the ubiquitous French cuisine of the times, employed a well-known Neapolitan pizza maker as her personal chef.

Although some argue Raffaele Esposito (chef and owner of Pizzeria Brandi in Naples) did not “invent” the pizza topped with tomato sauce, mozzarella and basil, it's widely agreed that his version not only popularized the style of pizza, but also earned the famous name.

The Queen of Savoy, Queen Margherita, enjoyed the flavors, plus the red, white and green ingredients which she felt represented the colors of the Italian flag.

Chicken Tetrazzini

It's said that several American chefs, enamored by “The Florentine Nightingale,” were giving permission to name a popular and decadent chicken dish after the internationally renowned opera singer Luisa Tetrazzini.

Fettuccine Alfredo

Although not famous at the time, restaurant owner and doting husband Alfredo di Lelio created the dish for his nausea-prone pregnant wife in 1914. By 1920, the dish had become so popular, it was added to the restaurant menu.

Fettuccine Alfredo recipe >

Pasta alla Norma

Basically, Pasta alla Norma was named after perfection, not directly after an actual person, but famous Italian opera composer Vincenzo Bellini was in the midst of it all.

As the story goes, after experiencing Norma—what would become Bellini's most famous opera—for the first time, friends and patrons began using the phrase una vera Norma (“a real Norma”) to describe anything they felt embodied excellence.

Not long after, Italian journalist, publisher and producer Nino Martoglio, treated to a new pasta dish by a chef from his (and Bellini’s) hometown of Catania, Italy, is said to have exclaimed: Chista è ‘na vera Norma! (It’s a real Norma!). This was in 1831. The name seems to have stuck.

Pasta alla Norma recipe >