Pane e Pace

The people behind it

Pane e Pace is the bakery of the Perrone family, who have been making bread in Matera for more than a century. The official website says that three generations of bakers lived through the whole twentieth century, taking part in the changes of Italian society without losing their bond with the land; Blitz Quotidiano dates the start of the business to 1918, in the historic premises on via delle Cererie.

Today the bakery is led by Lucia Perrone, whom the website presents as the family's baker: the company that runs the business bears her name, Antico Forno a Legna di Lucia Perrone & C. The website describes the project as a commitment to the conscious production of authentic food, to support good health and nourish peace in the community, and this idea gives the shop its name. The family's master bakers, the same source adds, advise customers on how to keep bread for up to fifteen days.

Sources: Pane e Pace — Chi siamo (sito ufficiale) · Pane e Pace — sito ufficiale · Blitz Quotidiano — Il pane di Matera premiato dal Gambero Rosso · Pane e Pace — Il progetto Pane e Pace (sito ufficiale)

What they make

The heart of production is Matera bread in its historic shapes. The website lists the cornetto loaf, the tall cut loaf and the low loaf; the cornetto is recognisable by its distinctive shape with deep cuts along the back, which widen the surface exposed to baking and therefore the share of crust. Blitz Quotidiano describes it as an oversized ring, crisp outside and soft inside, with a yellowish crumb and three small horns stamped on the surface, and reports that the bakery makes twenty-four shapes of bread with local flours.

Alongside the loaves there are focaccia, savoury and sweet biscuits and other Matera specialities, all baked in the wood-fired oven. According to the website, the shop also stocks selected products from Basilicata: Senise PGI peppers and crusco peppers, extra virgin olive oil, local pasta and pulses. Unsold bread, the website adds, is turned into bruschetta or donated to charities.

Sources: Pane e Pace — sito ufficiale · Pane e Pace — Pane a cornetto (sito ufficiale) · Blitz Quotidiano — Il pane di Matera premiato dal Gambero Rosso · Pane e Pace — Il progetto Pane e Pace (sito ufficiale)

Ingredients and territory

The raw material is durum wheat from Basilicata. The product page for the cornetto loaf lists twice-milled durum wheat semolina that is 100% from Basilicata, water, mother dough, salt and natural leavening, with no additives or preservatives according to the website's main page, and specifies that the semolina comes from local durum wheat ecotypes of the Matera area.

The Perrone family, explains the page devoted to the oven, buys several wheat varieties directly from local growers, in particular Senatore Cappelli and other local types, and has them milled at a small local mill to keep control of the whole supply chain. Even the fuel is local: the wood-fired oven burns bundles of brushwood cleared from the undergrowth of nearby land, and the leftover ash goes back to the suppliers' fields as fertiliser. Blitz Quotidiano notes that the bread is made under the PGI rules, with twice-milled durum semolina from the hills around Matera.

Sources: Pane e Pace — Pane a cornetto (sito ufficiale) · Pane e Pace — sito ufficiale · Pane e Pace — Il forno a legna (sito ufficiale) · Blitz Quotidiano — Il pane di Matera premiato dal Gambero Rosso

Recognition

The most recent independent recognition comes from Gambero Rosso's Panifici d'Italia 2027 guide: in the list of the seventy bakeries awarded Three Loaves, published by Scatti di Gusto on 23 June 2026, Pane e Pace appears as the only address in Basilicata. Three Loaves is the guide's highest award.

The same award had already come in the previous edition under a different name, Pane e Panettieri d'Italia 2025: greenMe, in its article of 19 June 2024 on the winning bakeries, names Pane e Pace in Matera as Basilicata's Three Loaves bakery. The official website also mentions the Three Loaves of 2024, which it describes as the sixth year in a row as the best bread in Basilicata, and the Guardiano del Gusto 2024 prize from Confesercenti Verona. Blitz Quotidiano reports that as early as 2019 the Gambero Rosso jury praised "over a century of bread" made with repeated gestures that have become a symbol of identity.

Sources: Scatti di Gusto — I 70 migliori panifici del 2027 con i Tre Pani del Gambero Rosso (23 giugno 2026) · greenMe — I migliori panifici d'Italia secondo il Gambero Rosso, guida Pane e Panettieri d'Italia 2025 (19 giugno 2024) · Pane e Pace — sito ufficiale · Blitz Quotidiano — Il pane di Matera premiato dal Gambero Rosso

Going there

The Matera shop listed on the website is at via Cererie 49/E, the same street where, according to Blitz Quotidiano, the Perrone family has worked since 1918; the company's registered office is at via Santo Stefano 37. For visitors to the city of the Sassi, the bakery is a practical way to understand what sets Matera bread apart: twice-milled semolina from Basilicata durum wheat, the cornetto shape with its cuts along the back, the crisp crust and the yellow crumb of a loaf that, according to the website's product page, keeps for seven days in a cool, dry place.

Besides bread, the shop sells focaccia, biscuits and products from Basilicata such as Senise peppers and cruschi, which the website lists among its offerings. The bakery takes part in Too Good To Go with Magic Boxes of unsold products. Opening hours and the availability of individual loaves are not given in the sources consulted: it is best to check with the bakery before going.

Sources: Pane e Pace — Punti vendita (sito ufficiale) · Pane e Pace — sito ufficiale · Blitz Quotidiano — Il pane di Matera premiato dal Gambero Rosso · Pane e Pace — Pane a cornetto (sito ufficiale) · Pane e Pace — Il progetto Pane e Pace (sito ufficiale)

Products and flavours

Matera bread

PGI · Fresh pasta, bread and pastry

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Senise peppers

PGI · Fruit, vegetables and pulses

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Pane di Matera PGI

The bread of the Sassi: durum semolina and heritage wheat, fruit-based sourdough, cornetto and forma alta shapes, family bread stamps, cialledda and feddarauss, and the city around it.

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Photo: Kars Alfrink / Wikimedia Commons — CC BY 2.0 · Resized and converted to WebP.

Senise crusco peppers

The PGI pepper of the Sinni valley: origins, growing, drying in strings, the powder called zafaran, fried crusco, European protection and the August festival in Senise.

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Photo: Generale Lee / Wikimedia Commons — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Resized and converted to WebP.

The place

Matera

The Sassi, Murgia and local bread: explore a city through architecture, nature and everyday life.

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Photo: Velvet / Wikimedia Commons — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Resized and converted to WebP.

The region

Basilicata