Almond Biscuits

The Biscotti di Prato, from the shop that defined them. Blue paper, hand-tied.

Antonio Mattei opened his biscottificio on Via Ricasoli, Prato, in September 1858, and the almond biscuit he perfected there became the one the world copies. The medals came fast — Florence 1861, London 1862, Paris 1867 — and Pellegrino Artusi, Italy's first great food writer, put him in the canon: a man, he wrote, with the genius of his craft.

The biscuit is four honest things — almonds, flour, sugar, eggs — baked, sliced, and baked again; "biscotti" means twice-cooked. The hardness is the design: these are made to be dipped, and to give way exactly then.

The Pandolfini family, four generations in, still bakes them in Prato and still wraps them in the hand-tied blue paper bag, unchanged.

In Tuscany the rite is vin santo at the end of the meal. In daily life, coffee and tea do the same work — morning, mid-afternoon, and the quiet end of dinner.

Meet the House: The original cantuccini, invented in Prato in 1858 and still baked from the same recipe.

Complete your table: Truffle Honey, Savini — a drop on the side changes the biscuit · Red Label Balsamico, Il Borgo — the grown-up end of the meal · The Rainbow Orcio, Muraglia — the other gift in the room.