Carloforte

Carloforte, the only town on San Pietro Island off Sardinia’s southwest coast, has one of the more improbable backstories on the entire island: settled in 1738 by Ligurian families who had themselves emigrated generations earlier to the Tunisian island of Tabarka, brought over by the King of Sardinia specifically to found a fishing colony here. The result, three centuries on, is a town that speaks its own dialect — tabarchino, closer to Genoese than to Sardinian — and cooks a cuisine that folds North African technique directly into an Italian island’s food culture.

Couscous on a Sardinian Menu

The clearest evidence of this layered history shows up on the dinner table: cascà, a Tabarkin couscous dish built with a rich vegetable and fish broth, sits on local menus beside standard Sardinian fare without anyone treating the combination as unusual. I ate a version of it at a harborside restaurant with a view of moored fishing boats, the semolina steamed properly light and fluffy, ladled over with a broth thick with local vegetables and a piece of grilled fish on the side — genuinely one of the more surprising meals I’ve had anywhere in Italy.

A Harbor Built for Tuna

Carloforte’s fortunes were built for two centuries on tuna, and the mattanza — the traditional, brutal tuna-trapping ritual practiced here well into recent decades — still shapes the town’s identity even as the industry itself has faded. The harborfront is lined with tall, narrow, brightly painted houses in ochre and rose and pale blue, a Ligurian architectural signature transplanted wholesale onto a Sardinian island, and in the early evening the whole waterfront fills with a slow procession of locals for the passeggiata, many still speaking tabarchino to each other in passing.

The Rest of the Island

Beyond the town, San Pietro’s coastline turns wild fast — volcanic rock formations at Punta delle Colonne, low scrub inhabited by one of the world’s few colonies of Eleonora’s falcons, and quiet coves reachable mostly by scooter along narrow roads. I rented one for an afternoon and got happily lost along the island’s western edge, stopping at a nameless cove where the water ran a deep, clean blue over black volcanic sand.

When to go: The ferry from Portovesme or Calasetta runs year-round; late spring and September offer the calmest crossings and the best chance at a table for cascà without a wait. Falcon-watchers should aim for spring, during the Eleonora’s falcon nesting season.