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Ancona is a port city on the central Adriatic coast of Italy, in the Marche region. Founded by Greek settlers around the 4th century BC, it has been shaped by centuries of maritime trade, making it one of the most important harbours of the Adriatic Sea. Its historic centre climbs the slopes of the Colle Guasco, overlooking a natural bay that has welcomed sailors, merchants and travellers for millennia.
The city is home to the Accademia dello Stoccafisso all'Anconitana, founded in 1997 to safeguard one of the most beloved recipes of the local culinary tradition: dried stockfish slow-cooked with potatoes, tomatoes, olive oil and local herbs. In 2015, the Municipality of Ancona awarded the dish the DE.CO. designation - a municipal recognition of origin - acknowledging it as a defining product of the city's identity and culture. The stockfish that Pietro Querini first encountered on the shores of Røst in 1431 found, over the centuries, one of its most distinctive homes here, on the Adriatic coast.
