“There’s one thing I have to say about Luciano’s favorite foods—it’s all about Modena,” Nicoletta Pavarotti tells me on the phone from the very town of Modena, where she shared a home with her late husband and has lived since the great tenor passed away 12 years ago. 

Best known to contemporary American audiences for being the set of Aziz Ansari’s Italian adventures in Netflix’s hit Master of None, the gorgeous town, set 26 miles from Bologna in the Emilian countryside, has given the world more than a few wonders: Enzo Ferrari, the founder of the eponymous race car company; chef Massimo Bottura’s Osteria Francescana, one of the world’s best restaurants;