Farina founders write love letter to Genoa

“Old World New” isn’t so much a cookbook as an ode to Genoa, Italy.

The book is from Luca Minna and Laura Garrone, the founders of Farina in San Francisco’s Mission District.

And like the restaurant, an Italian spot known for its attractive dining room and upscale food, “Old World New” is all elegance and style. (See Page J2 for a look at Farina’s stylish new pizzeria.)

In 188 pages, there are only 26 recipes, all collected at the back of the book. Most of the book is artistic photographs of fishermen in the Gulf of Genoa, sunsets behind olive trees, eggs cracking into wells of flour and swirling glasses of red wine.

The book is divided by season, with an appetizer, bread, pasta, entree, vegetable side dish and dessert for each. Dishes are what often appear on Farina’s menu, meaning plenty of high-end ingredients. There’s tagliarini with white truffles, calamari with saffron mashed potatoes, lamb filled with black truffles and seared tuna with burrata mousse.

We tried a couple of the more affordable and approachable options in The Chronicle’s test kitchen. What we found was that there was little noteworthy about the eggplant Parmesan, but Farina’s famed pesto was a hit.

The restaurant won the Pesto World Championship in Genoa in 2008 with chef Paolo Laboa’s recipe from his mother.

Letting the basil leaves soak in cold water before blending them mellows the flavor, and the water that clings to the leaves helps the sauce come together. The results are a bright pea green, unusually creamy and light.

With the home cook in mind, we didn’t seek out any of the special basils mentioned in the recipe, opting instead for supermarket ingredients. And rather than making Farina’s pasta from scratch, we bought fresh pasta sheets and cut those into the appropriate size.

No matter: The result was still championship worthy.