What local dishes should I try in San Marino, and where should I look for them?

San Marino eats as the Romagna hills eat, with its own flag on a few dishes. The foundation is the piadina: the unleavened flatbread cooked on a terracotta or iron griddle, folded around squacquerone (the soft, tangy local cheese), prosciutto and rocket, or cooked greens — sold from kiosks and bakery counters everywhere, and the correct answer to hunger at any hour. The pasta canon is the feast register: cappelletti in brodo (little meat-filled hats in capon broth, the Christmas plate), tagliatelle al ragù, strozzapreti twisted by hand, passatelli (breadcrumb-and-parmesan dumplings pressed into broth), and the republic's signature bake, nidi di rondine — "swallows' nests," fresh pasta rolled with ham, cheese and béchamel, sliced and gratinated — which Sammarinese kitchens claim as their own invention and serve on feast days. Mains run to the farmyard: coniglio alla sammarinese, rabbit braised with fennel, tomato and white wine (the Sammarinese answer to Romagna's porchetta style), grilled castrato (mutton) in the country season, and snails and game in the autumn hills.

The sweet shelf carries the national symbol. The Torta Tre Monti — wafers layered with hazelnut cream, capped in chocolate — has been made by La Serenissima in the Borgo since 1942, its 3 peaks standing for the 3 towers; a boxed Tre Monti is the republic's edible souvenir, alongside its sibling the Torta Titano. The calendar sweets run older: bustrengo, the dense Christmas cake of apples, polenta flour, figs and honey, and the piada dei morti, a raisin-and-walnut sweet piada baked for All Souls' in November. The cellar is small but real: the Consorzio Vini Tipici of San Marino gathers the republic's growers on the Titano slopes (vines at 200–500 m in valleys like Valdragone), producing Brugneto and Tessano (Sangiovese-based reds), the white Biancale from its own grape, and a Moscato spumante — bottles that barely leave the republic and are a table argument for drinking local here rather than in Italy.

Where to eat, by altitude: the Città's trattorie and the piazza restaurants of the historic center for the full canon at ceremony height (the fine-dining name on Piazza della Libertà included); Borgo Maggiore's osterie and piadina counters around the market for the working republic's lunch; and the agriturismi and country restaurants of the castelli — Faetano, Chiesanuova, Montegiardino — where the pasta is rolled in the house, the rabbit comes from the farm's own pens, and the consortium's wines are poured by the people who grew them. Finish at the pasticceria: La Serenissima's shop for the Tre Monti, still made where it was invented.

A piadina kiosk at the Borgo market: the griddle hissing, a piadina folded over squacquerone and rocket, and the shopper eating it standing up with the towers in view over the rooftops.

The Tre Monti is a trademark with a birthplace: only La Serenissima's cake is the 1942 original, and the imitations in the souvenir lanes are exactly that — the real shop is in Borgo Maggiore, a cable-car ride from where most visitors buy the copy. The second detail is seasonal: nidi di rondine and cappelletti in brodo are feast dishes that many kitchens make in earnest at weekends and holidays; on a weekday the same kitchen's tagliatelle is the honest order, and asking what the day's fresh pasta is beats ordering the signature cold.

• Piadina as the day's hinge — A kiosk piadina at midday between the towers and the museums
• The canon at dinner — Nidi di rondine or cappelletti in a Città trattoria, with a consortium red
• Sweets from the source — La Serenissima in Borgo Maggiore for the Tre Monti, not the airport-style souvenir shelf

The Città's restaurants serve the day-trip tide: kitchens peak at 1 p.m. for the bus crowds and the old town thins dramatically by evening, so the memorable dinners belong to those who sleep in the republic — day-trippers get the same menus at their most pressured hour. Agriturismi in the castelli keep farm hours and farm logic (set cooking, early dinners, closures out of season and midweek), and several of the best are a drive down unlit lanes. The local wines are a small production — Brugneto and Biancale appear on Sammarinese lists and rarely beyond the border, so the bottle to try is the bottle in front of you. And feast dishes are feast dishes: bustrengo is a Christmas food, the piada dei morti a November one, and no kitchen will apologise for the calendar.

Order by altitude: piadina in the Borgo, the pasta canon in the Città, the Tre Monti from La Serenissima, and a consortium wine with dinner.