Cherry Caprese Skewers

Use room temperature components for best flavor. Colorful heirloom cherry tomatoes make beautiful presentations. Fresh mozzarella in water is essential.

These skewers transform insalata caprese — one of Italy's most iconic dishes — into the perfect party-ready bite. The original salad takes its name from the island of Capri, a small limestone jewel set in the Bay of Naples off the Campanian coast, where the combination of ripe tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, basil, and olive oil is believed to have been assembled as a composed dish in the early 20th century. The first historical reference appears in connection with the Hotel Quisisana on Capri in the 1920s, where the dish was linked to visits by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, the firebrand founder of the Italian Futurist movement. Marinetti famously rejected heavy pasta-based Italian cooking in favour of lighter, fresher fare, and the salad's clean, uncooked simplicity fitted his philosophy perfectly. The salad's three signature colours — the red of tomato, the white of mozzarella, and the green of basil — also mirror the tricolore of the Italian flag, a symbolism that was noted and celebrated. It was in the 1950s that the dish achieved international fame, when the exiled Egyptian King Farouk, spending his days on Capri, became an enthusiastic devotee — reportedly ordering it in sandwich form at the Quisisana daily. His patronage, combined with Capri's glamorous postwar reputation as a haunt of celebrities and royalty, launched the caprese globally. By the 1990s, locals on the island believed the salad to be at least a century old. The Italian tradition insists it be made without vinegar, which is believed to overpower the delicate flavour of fresh mozzarella.