A Scarpetta of Genovese

Fare la scarpetta — "to make the little shoe" — is the Neapolitan act of dragging a scrap of bread through the last of a sauce so nothing goes to waste, and on this private three-hour walk with Teresa, a licensed Neapolitan guide, you'll do it with a sauce worth the gesture: Genovese, a slow-cooked tangle of onions and beef that takes hours to become sweet and amber, and that, despite its name, is entirely of Naples. The walk winds through two places whose names tell stories. Pignasecca, the city's oldest market, is a dense run of stalls where sellers call out over seasonal produce and the Neapolitan dialect drifts through the crowd. Spaccanapoli — "the Naples splitter" — is the arrow-straight street that cuts the old center clean in two. Between them you taste the everyday food of Naples: buffalo-milk mozzarella; taralli with a glass of wine; the Genovese and a Neapolitan ragù. It closes with a Neapolitan coffee and something sweet — a rum-soaked babà, or a slice of pastiera.

If that list of dishes hasn't already made you hungry, keep in mind that most Naples food tours are designed as street-food tours: fried things eaten on the move, the same handful of stops. This food tour takes you to the table. Classic dishes sit beside ones known mostly to locals, each a small surprise. The Genovese and the ragù aren't street snacks — they're the slow Sunday sauces of Neapolitan homes and tasting them is more like being fed by a family than handed a paper cone. That difference comes from Teresa. Guiding since 2004, she came to this work through languages, and she carries herself as someone still curious — searching, as she puts it, for what's real past the stereotypes tourism invents. She opens up dishes with the stories and small habits behind them. Moving through Pignasecca and the backstreets, greeting sellers she's known for years, she invites you into a Naples that only comes from someone who has eaten at these places her whole life.

Teresa Incoronato has worked as a licensed guide since 2004. Her path took shape through the study of foreign languages — an openness to the world that still defines how she works and how she meets people. On every walk, she is a curious traveler in her own city as much as her guests are, drawn to the exchange of views on what connects them and what sets them apart. She looks for what is real in Naples, past the stereotypes that tourism tends to create, and invites her guests into that same search.

Comfortable shoes for walking. A camera for the market and the streets. An appetite, and your curiosity for food and local life. Please share any food allergies or dietary restrictions with Teresa via Fernwayer Chat ahead of time, so the tastings can be arranged around you.