The story
Capeletis a la Caruso pairs small stuffed pasta with a rich sauce of cream, ham, mushrooms, cheese and beef extract, and it is a Montevideo invention rather than an Italian one. In the 1950s Raymundo Monti, cook at the restaurant Mario y Alberto in Uruguay's capital, set out to create a new dish in the Italian style. He named the sauce after Enrico Caruso, the Neapolitan tenor who had thrilled South American audiences on his tours of the 1910s. It became a Uruguayan classic and later turned up on menus elsewhere in South America and in Western Europe, yet it remains almost unknown in Italy.
Also known as salsa Caruso, Caruso sauce, cappelletti alla Caruso, capelettis a la Caruso.
On the Meridish menu
Capeletis a la Caruso was the rice & noodles course on menu No. 26 on October 26, 2026. Its clue in the game, which hints at the place without naming it:
Little stuffed pasta in a sauce of cream, ham, mushrooms and cheese, named after a star tenor. A chef in this capital on a huge river estuary invented it in the 1950s.
In Meridish, every dish is pinned to the town or city most widely credited with creating it. A guess within 25 km scores all 100 points. How scoring works.
Sources
Food history is often disputed. Think we've pinned it in the wrong place? Tell us at hello@meridish.com, ideally with a source.
