Spaghetti all’assassina has gone from being a recipe loved by the people of Bari to one of the most Googled and Instagrammed dishes in Italy.
A specialty of Bari, our regional capital, spaghetti all’assassina is a pasta dish cooked using a rather unconventional method. Possibly one of the reasons why you will be hard pressed to find it on the menu outside Italy – and lucky to find it beyond Bari. Another reason why no vacation in Puglia is complete without a visit to Barivecchia for a plate of Bari’s best.
“There are also one or two left-field dishes for the experimental out there like Assassin’s spaghetti, where you have to nearly burn the pasta and then cook it in a similar way to a risotto. It’s phenomenal, much better than it sounds.”
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What is spaghetti all’assassina?
Spaghetti all’assassina is a “fiery” pasta dish from Bari, known for its bold flavour and dramatic cooking method. Unlike most pasta dishes, the spaghetti is not boiled in water but cooked directly in a pan with tomato passata, garlic, olive oil, and a generous amount of chilli, creating a charred, caramelised texture. The result is a dish that’s crispy at the edges, smoky, spicy, and deeply savoury. In actual fact, the amount of chilli used is minimal. It’s relatively spicy to local taste! What you’ll notice most is the unique texture.
Despite its ominous name, spaghetti all’assassina – literally “killer’s spaghetti” – isn’t a relic from Puglia’s distant past. The origins of assassina date back to the late 1960s, at Bari’s Al Sorso Preferito restaurant, where chef Enzo Francavilla is said to have improvised the dish when diners requested something hot and unconventional. So intense was the heat of the chilli, the story goes, that a guest jokingly accused the chef of trying to kill them—hence the name.
Though it experienced periods of obscurity, the dish has made a strong comeback in recent years. The founding of the Accademia dell’Assassina in 2013 played a major role in its revival, preserving and promoting the traditional method. It’s also gained wider fame thanks to appearances in Italian media, including the TV series Le indagini di Lolita Lobosco. In 2024, spaghetti all’assassina became one of Italy’s top ten most searched recipes, a testament to its growing cult status.
There’s still debate over what defines the “authentic” version of the recipe. In Bari’s kitchens, you’ll find variations in approach, but purists agree on one thing: technique is everything. According to the official version endorsed by the Accademia, the dish must be cooked in a heavy black cast-iron frying pan, known locally as a sartàscene. The spaghetti is first toasted, then cooked risottata – like risotto – with ladles of tomato broth added gradually. The goal? To achieve spaghetti bruciati (burnt spaghetti), a crunchy, slightly burnt crust with just the right amount of char. Never bitter, always bold.
These days, many variations of the recipe exist, with the addition of a variety of other ingredients: stracciatella, cime di rape, raw tuna, smoked pepper sauce, canestrato cheese sauce… “There’s been an excessive use with pointless and unnecessary variations,” notes gastronomist and journalist Sandro Romano.
We agree. On our last visit to Urban L’Assassineria Urbana there were 14 different versions of the dish on the menu. Assassina should be crispy, slightly charred, and fiery. But as more ingredients and flavours are added, the further away you get in terms of taste and texture from an authentic assassina.
A taste of Mediterranean noir
Renewed domestic interest in the dish is in part thanks to two well-known Italian writers of the ‘Mediterranean noir’ genre. Well suited to the role as the name suggests, spaghetti all’assassina becomes an integral part in the plot of novels by brothers Gianrico and Francesco Carofiglio, and by Gabriella Genisi.
Both novels include the recipes (along with others from the Bari table that feature in the narrative) as appendices.
The Carofiglio brothers were the first to mention assassina in a literary work in their 2014 book La casa nel bosco (“The House in the Woods”), described as “an evolution of leftover and slightly charred pasta made during times when nothing was wasted.”
Lolita Lobosco
Gabriella Genisi’s 2015 novel Spaghetti all’Assassina tells the story of the murder of a chef known for being among the best at preparing them. Genisi’s protagonist Lolita Lobosco, a deputy police commissioner from Bari, is described as a beautiful, sensual thirty-six year old, bold and “good in the kitchen”.
The derivative 2021 RAI hit television series Le indagini di Lolita Lobosco brought the dish into Italian homes, further popularising the recipe.
TV times
TV cooking shows have also raised the profile of assassina. In 2018, Bari chef Almo Bibolotti wowed the judges of the Italian MasterChef series when he prepared the dish, leading one of them to exclaim that the dish was “out of this world”.
The same view was recently echoed by American actor and food writer Stanley Tucci in his TV series Searching for Italy.
“This goes against everything I know about pasta,” he remarked, effusive in his praise for the dish. “Honestly, I’ve never seen anything like that before… And I’ve been around, too!”
Spaghetti all’assassina | a dish of two halves
In recent years, spaghetti all’assassina has become a kind of status symbol among Bari’s restaurants – a badge of honour worn proudly and judged by the boldness, burn and brilliance of each plate served.
But even its success is not without debate. Two restaurants claim credit for its invention: Al Sorso Preferito and the now defunct Marc’Aurelio. Two dominant schools of thought claim to trace its path from kitchen curiosity to culinary icon, each with differing timelines and origin stories. As if that weren’t enough, there are also two rival “academies”, each self-appointed guardians of the dish’s authenticity and heritage.
Even the meaning behind the name assassina is contested. Some say it refers to the dish’s fiery heat, others to “killing” the spaghetti. And then there’s the cooking itself: should the pasta be scorched from raw or semi-boiled first? As ever, with all legends, there is more than one version of the truth.
Rise, like a phoenix | spaghetti all’assassina on the menu
The first appearance of spaghetti all’assassina likely dates back to the late 1960s or early ’70s. Despite a strong debut, the dish faded into relative obscurity for decades. It was rarely seen on menus in Bari, deemed too recent to be “traditional” for old-school trattorie, and too rustic for the polished plates of 1980s nouvelle cuisine. Somewhere in between, it simply disappeared.
Fast forward to today, and spaghetti all’assassina is enjoying a red-hot revival. A cult favourite among locals and tourists alike, it’s now the subject of enthusiastic detective work, with fans hungry for every spicy detail of its origin story.
The recipe itself was never formally recorded. Instead, it spread through whispers in kitchens. Part improvisation, part necessity, part clever resourcefulness. Like many iconic dishes, its history is laced with intrigue: rumours, red herrings, and a healthy dose of speculation. The truth, much like the dish itself, is somewhere in the char.
But thanks to the reporting of Sandro Romano and the researches of local Bari historian Felice Giovine, based on a review of archive documents and personal interviews with Enzo Francavilla, a definitive version of events is emerging.
The scorched legend of spaghetti all’assassina
In 1967 Enzo Francavilla, an ambitious chef from Foggia in Puglia, bought over the business of Al Sorso Preferito a small family run trattoria in Bari. Just days after opening he was approached by two Neapolitan diners requesting something spicy and hearty. Thinking on his feet, Francavilla seared dry spaghetti in an iron pan with oil, garlic, chilli, and tomato sauce, cooking it risotto-style and letting it char deliberately. The resulting dish was rich, spicy, and crispy in parts, unlike any pasta the diners had encountered before.
The verdict? “Delicious,” they said. But one, tongue tingling, added with a grin: “You’re a murderer.”And with that, the name spaghetti all’assassina – “killer’s spaghetti” – was born.
From that moment, the dish became a local sensation. In 1972, Francavilla moved the restaurant to Via de Nicolò, naming it Osteria La Marianna al Sorso Preferito in memory of his late wife. Queues formed nightly for one of just two house specialities: orecchiette mantecate and the now-legendary killer’s spaghetti.
Nicholas Antonacci, a Bari-based maître-sommelier and chef by trade who in 1981, at just sixteen years old, was promoted to demi chef at Il Sorso Preferito, offers a slightly different version of events. He recounts how an angry spaghetti all’arrabbiata slowly evolved into a killer spaghetti all’assassina.
Initially serving chilled meats and cheeses, Antonacci explains how chef and owner Enzo Francavilla gradually introduced hot dishes in response to popular demand, including a fiery spaghetti all’arrabbiata. With time, the well-used iron pans used to cook the arrabbiata sauce began to yield a charred, caramelised crust adding new depth to the dish. “This is a killer!”, declared one diner, and with that spaghetti all’assassina was born.
By the late 1970s, the restaurant passed into new hands: maître d’s Giuseppe Saracino and Mimì De Cosmo, alongside chef Gaetano “Nanuccio” Lonigro. The trio would go on to acquire another of the city’s landmark restaurants, Marc’Aurelio, later bringing in Pierino Lonigro, Nanuccio’s brother and a skilled chef in his own right. It was during this period spaghetti all’assassina made the leap from off-menu curiosity to a fully fledged first course.
Antonacci notes that many chefs who passed through Il Sorso Preferito and its sister restaurant Marc’Aurelio took fragments of the assassina story with them. Recipes were adapted, origins forgotten, and in some cases, credit was claimed.
Today, Il Sorso Preferito remains in the ownership of Pierino Lonigro who, with his nephew Vincenzo in the kitchen, is still serving up the dish.
Leftovers?
Some consider the origins of the recipe to be more distant. This is either a recycled dish made from leftover pasta cooked the day before, or the clever invention of Bari housewives diluting the tomato sauce to make it go a little further and transforming it into a surprising spaghetti for unexpected guests. There is, after all, a well known saying in Bari dialect: “Addò màngene do, màngene tre” (where two people can eat, so can three).
Francavilla may have been inspired by that leftover pasta that was “fried” on Sunday evenings in the homes of Bari. Or even perhaps by the tasty crust of baked leftover pasta. But leftover pasta in Bari was made using rigatoni or orecchiette from Sunday lunch, with its ragù. Never with spaghetti.
On this, both academies are at one and do not compromise. Spaghetti all’assasina is not a recycling solution for leftover spaghetti and tomato sauce. The spaghetti must be cooked from raw, using the required ingredients and according to the specified if not unconventional risottata method. Which includes that black iron frying pan from Bari Vecchia!
Killer spaghetti or spaghetti killer?
The name of this dish comes from the cooking method, where the spaghetti is sautéed in the pan from raw, effectively “murdered” until it’s charred, and crisp.
When Stanley Tucci visited Bari, he was told by the chef that cooked it for him that the dish was named spaghetti all’assassina – killer’s spaghetti – because the diner it was originally cooked for found its chilli heat so fierce he choked on it and accused the chef of trying to kill him with its fiery ferrocity.
The former explanation was confirmed to us when we spoke to chef Pierino (Pietro) Lonigro, credited at Al Sorso Preferito as the ‘inventor’ of spaghetti all’assassina (an early pioneer of the dish who took learned the recipe from Enzo Francavilla and took over the kitchen after him, Pierino is credited with introducing assassina to the restaurant menu—the first so to do). The cook “kills” the spaghetti treating it so cruelly in the pan, the spaghetti screams and hisses as it “burns” to death. Tough love! This was also the version explained to us when we spoke to a Bari historian and academic over lunch recently.
In reality you will be hard pressed to find an assassina dish in Bari that has such a ferocious heat. Piccante is relative. In Puglia chilli is not used for fiery hot heat. It’s a subtle warmer of traditional dishes. Locals do not typically enjoy a fiery heat. Not really because of a fear of the heat, but rather because the taste of food is important and a fierce chilli heat would overpower any dish and the important balance of flavours.
But for those accustomed to another cuisine’s use of chilli, spaghetti all’assassina comes out on the comforting warmth end of the spectrum. Another reason why it is unlikely the name of the dish has to do with a choking chilli heat!
Assassina | the risottatura “error”
I burnt the garlic in an iron pan with oil and chilli – not just browned, but burnt – and then removed it.
Into the boiling oil, I poured raw, hand-crushed peeled tomatoes, causing a flare-up. That flare-up was the ‘joy of the kitchen,’ which I immediately covered with a lid. The resulting smoke remained inside, imparting a smoky flavour to the spaghetti, as if they were burnt, but they were actually roasted.
Meanwhile, I brought water and salt to the boil and cooked the spaghetti (actually vermicelli) until just before al dente, when they began to bend. I drained them well and added them to the pan with the tomato to absorb the flavours. I stirred continuously, adding more raw, crushed tomatoes if they became too dry, and continued cooking until the pasta was done and the tomato had thickened. I tasted them to check the cooking, flavour, and salt, then gave them a superficial toasting. I finished by adding a little oil to give them a sheen, and my recipe was complete.
From Sandro Romano’s interview with Enzo Francavilla.
According to this account there is no ‘risottatura’ (cooking pasta like risotto) or toasting of the pasta—techniques considered essential by the Accademia dell’Assassina.
In practice, few restaurants perform the ‘risottatura’. When we interviewed him, Pierino Lonigro of Al Soso Preferito confirmed that the spaghetti is pre-cooked for convenience and speed of service. Yet at Urban Assassineria, it is essential that the spaghetti is toasted.
Spaghetti all’assassina discovered!
Los spaghetti all’assassina o spaghetti bruciati (espaguetis a la asesina o espaguetis quemados) son un plato sencillo y relativamente moderno en la gastronomía italiana. Se trata de unos espaguetis cocinados directamente sobre un sofrito de ajo, guindilla y aceite, a los que se les va añadiendo un caldo a base de concentrado de tomate hasta que se van haciendo, a la manera de un risotto. El resultado debe ser una pasta “quemada, crujiente y picante”, como describen los blogueros detrás de The Puglia Guys, embajadores virtuales de la cocina de Puglia, y quienes descubrieron la receta a una escritora gastronómica del diario The Guardian, Rachel Roddy, afincada en Roma, que compartió el plato en el periódico británico en 2023.
— El PAÍS, Spaghetti all’assassina, la pasta que se cocina quemada (a propósito), 18 April 2026.
“Al contrario que muchos platos italianos que comes de vacaciones e intentas hacer en casa, en los spaghetti all’assassina todo es una cuestión de método para quemar y chamuscar los espaguetis sin que resulten amargos. Una buena Assassina debe tener sabor ahumado, pero no amargo”, escribe en su blog Scott Maxwell, cofundador de The Puglia Guys. Algunos restaurantes, e incluso el mismísimo Al Sorso Preferito, confiesa hervir la pascelsota antes de hacer la “risottada” directamente en la sartén para ahorrar algo de tiempo. “Es una elección que tiene sentido cuando hay mucho volumen, pero que cambia el resultado final. Nosotros hemos decidido comenzar con la pasta cruda. Es más complejo, pero te permite tener un control total sobre la textura del plato”, dice Celso Laforgia, cofundador del restaurante de Bari Urban Assassineria. Este local empezó a recibir clientes de todo el mundo para probar expresamente este plato a raíz de su participación en una emisión del actor Stanley Tucci y toda la experiencia gira en torno a la Assassina. “Para mí es como la magdalena de Proust. Probé ese plato por primera vez con 16 años en Al Sorso Preferito y cada vez que la pruebo siento que vuelvo a ese momento”, dice Laforgia, que acaba de abrir junto a su socio un local en Milán. Una apuesta singular para alguien que reconoce recibir correos electrónicos con amantes de la cocina de todo el mundo que viajan a Bari “solo” para probar ese plato. Laforgia parte de la receta clásica para preparar variaciones que cambian con las estaciones, los productos de temporada y las propias ideas del chef. “Es un plato vivo y debe seguir evolucionando”, defiende.