Sicilia part II

the rest of my culinary adventures in Sicily

In a previous post I showed you some of the best “street food” I had during my recent trip to Sicily. Today I want to show you some amazing food I had in restaurants during the same trip.

Let’s start with Palermo:

I dined at the very popular “Buatta Cucina Popolana”. This place was recommended in all the guides I use for reference (including the Michelin guide), and also recommended by a couple of people I know. Nevertheless one very trusted food writer that I love (I won’t name names here), told me it was way overhyped, so I came super curious to find out what the deal is. I grew up eating Sicilian food, so I am usually not super keen in ordering the classic dishes such as Pasta con le Sarde, Sarde a beccaficu etc…So I opted for the surprise tasting menu and I told them I was very familiar with all the classics and asked if the chef could surprise me.
The place was very busy and actually I was a bit disappointed by the fact that the waitress had very little information on the dishes that were presented to me. The food was overall good, some nice strong sea flavors, but honestly nothing stood out as exceptional. I very much enjoyed the calamaretti in a cold tomato sauce (1st pic) and this handmade pasta with red prawn from Mazara and a delicious fishy sauce (2nd pic). Maybe this is the type of place to come as a tourist to eat all the classics (plenty of tourists tables here), but their attempt to be creative and a little out of the ordinary didn’t quite work at the level I was hoping for.

I stopped for lunch at “Osteria Alivaru” (recommended by the person who didn’t like Buatta!) and had a very tasty lunch there. I tried their caponata, something that usually I never order and it was really good, so much that I told my waiter it was almost as good as my aunt’s. I ordered a pasta special, which was a handmade spaghetti with red prawn and sea urchin and this was incredibly delicious. The dense sauce had so much sea flavour and umami that I literally wanted to lick the plate clean! Instead I opted for a massive “scarpetta” with their delicious sesame bread (semola bread topped with sesame seeds is very traditional all over Sicily), so much that the waiter left wandering if I had ever eaten…
This is my favorite kind of restaurant, small and unpretentious, family run and also a bit nonchalant, but with delicious food which is traditional, but with an extra element of deliciousness.

After my Palermo visit I spent a few days in Castelbuono, a small town in the Madonie mountains and the birthplace of my father. Here I visited my aunt Sarina, and her daughter Enza made this delicious lunch for me.
First of all we had some sheep ricotta, which was just made…it was still warm and so tasty it nearly made me cry. Sheep ricotta like this is very hard to get anywhere outside of Sicily and it’s an incredible treat, so luscious and creamy. It’s what is used in all the Sicilian desserts as well (cannoli, cassata etc…)
Then we had some stuffed little aubergines. I forget what these are called but I had never had them before. They are tiny little aubergines stuffed with cheese, anchovies, breadcrumbs and then braised in a sweet tomato sauce and they are delicious, little parcels of flavour!
After that we had an unbeatable Sicilian classic pasta dish that is almost impossible to get anywhere outside of the island: “Pasta con i tenerumi”
This soupy pasta is made with the green part of the cucuzza squash. I have mentioned these unique long type of zucchini in this article I wrote I while back. This is a soupy pasta that you would imagine would be perfect for a cold winter night, but the cucuzze are available only for a few weeks of the summer, so technically this is the only time you can eat this pasta. Once you let it cool down and grate some fresh ricotta salata, it’s surprisingly refreshing, at least for your stomach.
This dish is traditionally made with broken spaghetti, a classic Sicilian soup pasta, so popular that they even sell them already broken as an industrial format over there! To conclude this meal we had some of the legendary Torrone made by my aunt Sarina. This literally made me cry as it was one of my favorite things as a child. it’s made with Roasted Sicilian almonds, caramelised sugar, grated lemon rind and cinnamon.

Castelbuono has become a gastronomic tourist destination in recent years, mostly because of the quality of its restaurants and local mountain ingredients. My family brought me out for dinner at “Uva club taverna enoteca”. September is mushroom season, so we were lucky that they had some incredible fresh Porcini. We had a porcini carpaccio (pic 2), very simple preparation with thinly sliced mushrooms, parsley and local oil and it was one of the best mushroom dishes I have ever eaten. I also tried a little beef tartare served with local black truffle and it was sensational. While we were eating the owner walked in with a crate full of Ovolini mushrooms that he had just picked up (pic3). He insisted we should try those too, so 5 minutes later we had a carpaccio of Ovolini (pic 4), which was also an incredible treat. I also had a pasta with Porcini (not pictured) and the whole meal was glorious. When the mushrooms are so fresh and good, you hardly need to do anything to them…

Next stop on my journey was Trapani, hometown of my maternal grandmother.

Here I discovered one of my new favorite restaurants “Caupona taverna di Sicilia”, where chef Rosi Napoli creates traditional food with some extra gears. I wrote extensively about this place and its dishes in one of my Substack notes so I’m gonna copy and paste it here:

I rarely eat in the same restaurant more than once when visiting a place, but here I came back 3 times! When I first arrived in Trapani a few days ago, I headed out for dinner to a restaurant I had read about in several places: Caupona, taverna di Sicilia.

After a few bites I became enamored with the food conceived and prepared by chef Rosi Napoli.

The first night I ordered something rather traditional, but that I haven’t eaten much in the past: ricotta ravioli in a rich fish broth, and I felt immediately a very strong emotional connection to this food. The creaminess of the fresh ricotta somehow tempering the intensity of the Trapanese style dense broth and ultimately this dish was incredibly balanced.

Having grown up with a nonna and a bunch of aunts from Trapani, I am very accustomed and I have an emotional attachment to the flavors of Trapanese traditional cuisine. Here I found all these flavors but always with an extra twist that never felt forced or contrived. There is a deep understanding of the traditional flavors and how they can be combined in an unusual way.

At the end of that meal I decided to come back and the second time around I let Francesca (who works there) suggests something for me. She convinced me to try a starter that I would have never ordered: fried tuma cheese and tuna bottarga. For some reason this combination of deep fried cheese and super salty cured tuna roe made no sense to me…and yet she was so right. This proved to be one of the tastiest things I have had in this trip. This was such a happy marriage, a genius combination, you could hardly tell the two ingredients apart in your mouth. The wafer thin bottarga almost melted onto the hot crunchy crust of the breaded cheese, and the gooey interior harmoniously blended with the umami of the bottarga…in fact this was an umami fest in my mouth and I couldn’t help but smile at every bite. After I also tried a pasta with octopus ragu’ (also recommended by Francesca). I rarely order octopus, I do like it, but I have some childhood experiences that somehow always stop me from ordering it (a story for another time). This dish was a true explosion of flavor. At first I noticed some raw cold diced tomato on top of the pasta and was a little worried about that, but after a few bites I understood this was another stroke of genius, the tomato acting as a mouth freshener just when you were starting to feel the ragu’ was almost too intense. The temperature and texture contrast also really worked as a general freshness mouthfeel.

The third night I ordered a mixed platter of antipasti…every morsel tastier than the previous one, special mention to a melt-in-your-mouth anchovy “meatball” and a cured tuna on top of a panella (chickpea fritter). I finished with a handmade pasta with a kind of pesto made with basil, garlic and almonds, and a tartare of rich and almost creamy Mazara red prawn…so good, it was like a celebration in my mouth!

This is my favorite kind of restaurant, it’s normally priced, heavily based on tradition, but with an intensity of flavor and playfulness worth of a starred restaurant, without the pretentiousness. The food is so balanced and so incredibly well seasoned (not always a given even in nice places).

Every night my mouth and my soul were so happy and satisfied that I felt no need or concentration left for a dessert, so I ordered a glass of sweet wine (zibibbo or marsala) instead, accompanied by a small almond paste cookie.

May I add this place has the best view ever, in front of the beautiful chiesa delle anime sante del purgatorio. If you find yourself in Trapani go visit!

Another Trapani favorite was “La Bettolaccia”, where I had lunch twice. The first time I had a delightful handmade pasta with squid-ink, stracciatella and a tartare of red Mazara prawn (pic 1). The following day I had the traditional Cuscusu from Trapani, accompanied by a frittura mista of squid and prawn. If you follow me you should know by now about the western Sicilian traditional fish couscous, but if you don’t, you can read this piece I wrote a while back.

My last day in Sicily I hopped on the aliscafo (Hydrofoil?) and visited the incredibly beautiful island of Favignana, just 30 minutes away from Trapani, and visited the Florio Tonnara museum. I will tell you about that in another post, for now let me tell you about the very delicious food I had for lunch at the “Osteria del sotto sale”.
For starters I had anchovies breaded in grissini (I think) and fried. They were as delicious as they look, crunchy and fishy and perfectly fried!
Then I had a plate of their busiate (traditional pasta format from Trapani) in a very rich fresh tuna ragu’. This was also incredibly flavorful and it was a portion that could have fed at least two people.

Hope you enjoyed this survey of incredible food and restaurants I had in Sicily. Let me know if you have any questions. After writing this post I am so hungry and I am going to have to go and make some lunch…

A presto