The best way to explore Sicily’s history and mosaic of cultural influences (alongside its layered architecture and enthralling rituals) is with the palate. Thousands of years of conquest and occupation left its culinary mark on this sun-bleached island, from Spanish chocolate-making prowess (pinched from the Aztecs), and North African couscous and chickpea recipes to the ancient Greeks’ vines and olive groves. Sicilians are fiercely proud of this jumbled culinary heritage, and unique dishes and rituals they can call their own: caponata, busiate al pesto trapanese, pane e panelle fried chickpea sandwiches, the irresistibly simple pasta alla norma, sweet granita and brioche breakfasts.
One of the joys of exploring the island’s slow food scene via your stomach is the high-low approach to eating here. A hole-in-the-wall style café with makeshift tables can rustle up good honest Sicilian food as exquisite (if not more so) than the Michelin-starred hotspots. Sicily’s age-old, raucous markets are dotted with vendors selling delectable morsels of fried anchovies, hefty, gooey-inside arancini and other island delights – all showcasing this collision of cultural influences, as well as the volcanic soil’s enviable bounty and coastal plunder. The food is often paired with a dramatic setting: cantilevered over a cliff edge an inky, menacing silhouette of Etna, in an uplit, lair-like Hyblean mountain cave, spilling onto a beach with intensely turquoise shallows. From understated, plastic chair haunts that lure in the foodie pilgrims to high-octane theatrical affairs that elevate the island’s enviable produce to alchemical heights, here are the best restaurants in Sicily.
Locanda Nerello, Etna
Occupying one of the prettiest rooms at Monaci Delle Terre Nere, a bucolic wine estate and 18th-century baronial house reimagined as a boutique hotel, Locanda Nerello tickles the bon viveurs before the photogenic plates are served or the wine poured into paper-thin glasses. Contemporary art and furniture pair as beautifully with the room’s weathered splendour as the organic wines with the beef belly with wild fennel or the cuttlefish risotto. The chefs are spoilt for treasure from the estate’s 60 acres of fertile volcanic soil along with the local (and typically superb) fisherman’s haul (expect ludicrously flavoursome scabbardfish ragout and ancient courgette parmigianta) while Monaci Delle Terre Nere’s viticultural foundation and trailblazing organic wine growing operation make for a wine list worth leafing through and inspecting. Booking supper here well before you arrive is highly advised – Sicilians swing by for special occasions (perhaps the ultimate testimonial).
Address: Via Monaci, 95019 Zafferana Etnea CT, Italy
Website: monacidelleterrenere.it
Norma, Noto
There’s something wonderfully Sicilian about this Noto-based restaurant’s interiors. Technically, the olive green velvet banquettes, chandeliers and industrial chairs shouldn’t gel, but just like the island’s melting pot of cultures, the refined jumble works to elegant effect. On those olive green velvet banquettes sit a tribe of travellers and locals as elegantly dressed as the restaurant itself, typically in the know as this bistro slips under most’s radars. It is celebrated local artist Sergio Fiorentino’s favourite, and for good reason. Owned and run by Norma Gritti and Salvatore Malandrino, who extended a 2011 Sicilian sabbatical for the foreseeable, Norma is a bistrot where locavore food is elevated to palatable heights – not the punitive 6-hour tasting menu, nor the frothy, foamy, alchemic sort – just really good food, presented beautifully, as if in some stylish, gastronomically adept friend’s dining room. Tuck into contemporary riffs on traditional pasta dishes (the seafood options are divine and all spanking fresh), or plates hailing from Northern Italy such as Milanese and risotto, courtesy of Norma’s Milanese roots. Begin with a glass of bollicine and end with a frosted glass of tiramisu.
Address: Via Rocco Pirri, 59, 96017 Noto SR, Italy
Website: instagram.com/norma_bistrot/
Zash Boutique Hotel and Spa, Etna
The easy-going, unpretentious spirit of this Etna hotel belies its gold-standard gastro form. Fleshing out the hauntingly pretty skeleton of an old palmento (a wine press carved into black lava stone basins with old millstones), Zash Boutique Hotel and Spa’s restaurant sits under a grand peachy house, all blistered by the sun and brimming with tales from its noble past. The food here is in its own giddy league, with Chef Guiseppe Raciti winning Zash its Michelin star in 2019 for his experimental spins of Sicilian classics. A balance is struck between the fussy, frothy, perfumed drama associated with Michelin-starred haunts and the pared-down Sicilian classics that let the spanking-fresh ingredients lead the way. Whether opting for the chef’s tasting menu or à la carte, every plate feels like a little artwork – from the olive, anise and fennel bread staggered on podiums to the sweet finale (expect imaginative combinations such as a white coffee ice-cream with meringue and coconut). The chef’s signature uovo poche croccante may sound basic, but only a master of the culinary arts can poach an egg to perfection, wrap it in a wafer-thin coat that cracks like the top of creme brulée, then douse is in mulberries and provola cheese. Seasonal mains, such as the roasted tuna in teriyaki (that slices like butter and sings with intensely flavoured aubergine and onions), are best eaten at a snail’s pace to relish every mouthful, washed down with Etna wines.
Address: Zash Boutique Hotel & Spa, SP2/I-II, 60, 95018 Riposto CT, Italy
Website: zash.it
Ristorante Locanda Don Serafino, Ragusa Ibla
As is so often the case in Sicily, the setting here is as haunting as the food – film-set worthy, in fact. Occupying an uplit, vaulted cave (once stables for the church) in Ragusa Ibla’s old town, Locanda Don Serafino’s restaurant is a five-minute shuffle down several steep streets from the Baroque town’s small-but-mighty boutique hotel. You’re in the foothills of the Hyblaean Mountains here, where the air is cooler and the houses more pastel-fancy and Hans Christian Anderson-esque than the resplendent honey-hued Baroques. Long hemmed by the trailblazing Chef Vincenzo Candiano, Locanda Don Serafino is one of those Sicilian restaurants that will print itself indelibly to your mind, an experience that transcends the food with its brooding, lair-like setting, balletic waiters and serious wine cellar (over 200 labels) honouring the island’s vines. Signature dishes include black spaghetti with sea urchins, ricotta and cuttlefish and an unctuous pork-belly secondi; polished diners can choose from three tasting menus, all elevating the island’s enviable produce without feeling too overpowering or molecular. And once you’ve rolled your eyes in rapture at the solid then, abruptly, molten Modica chocolate pudding, edge into the cigar lounge or nurse a Tasca D’Almerita red on a terrace wrapped in cashmere and flickering lanterns.
Address: Ristorante Locanda Don Serafino Via Avvocato Giovanni Ottaviano, 13, 97100 Ragusa RG, Italy
Website: locandadonserafino.it
Otto Geleng, Taormina
You’re in Grand Tour territory, where linen-and-loafered aristocrats once puffed cigars on the terrace of Sicilian grande dame Grand Hotel Timeo, their coils of smoke mirroring those rising from Etna’s mouth just across the bay of Naxos. It’s easy to imagine them still sitting here crossed-legged and contemplative on Otto Geleng’s bougainvillaea-smothered terrace, where patterned lace tablecloths are caught in the dim, amber glow of flickering oil lamps and waiters recount the provenance of ingredients with the enthusiasm, of someone who’s grown them themselves. Diners can choose between fish, meat or vegetarian menus, all of which showcase Sicily’s finest produce, from the moreish beef carpaccio sprinkled with Sicilian black truffle, and cuttlefish pasta with wild fennel to the creamy saffron and dandelion risotto. With over 400 wines to choose from and Negronis shaken up in style from the bar, evenings linger on here as the pianist veers into more lively territory.
Address: Otto Geleng, Grand Hotel Timeo, Via Teatro Greco, 59, 98039 Taormina ME, Italy
Website: belmond.com
Hostaria San Pietro, Trapani
Understated and, if not a little makeshift (think plastic tablecloths and a kitchen separated by those butcher chains), Hostaria San Pietro is where to go in Trapani’s Gibellina Nuova for intensely flavoured seafood couscous. The region’s North African influences (Tunisia lies just across the coast) are acutely manifest in its cuisine – San Vito Lo Capo hosts an annual couscous festival and chickpea fritters, pistachios and spices such as saffron and cinnamon feature across many of its restaurants’ menus. Hostaria San Pietro’s is hand-written on a scruffy piece of paper, according to the fisherman’s catch – cod, prawns, squid. The other dish to try here is the busiate (also cooked with seafood), a pasta which derives its name from its preparation technique. Dough made from durum semolina flour is rolled round a wooden ‘buso’ stick to form a tight, telephone chord shape. This is traditionally paired with pesto alla Trapanese (a Genoese import back when Trapani was a leading Mediterranean port), but the one to try here is with prawns and pistachio. The puddings are worth hanging around for, particularly the cannolis, as are the inconceivably strong espressos.
Address: Hostaria San Pietro, Via Porta Galli, 91100 Trapani TP, Italy
Website: facebook.com
Hotel Signum, Salina
Cast adrift in the Tyrannean Sea between the dishevelled Sicilian port of Milazzo and Naples lies one of Europe’s best-kept secrets, a cluster of volcanic islands that gurgle under the shallows and spurt molten lava from their craters. Time hits differently on the Aeolians, particularly on sleepy Salina, whose volcanic slopes are carpeted in wild capers and whose lava houses and fishing villages appear cantilevered over the cliffs, with views of a smoking Stromboli. One of them is the family-run Hotel Signum, refashioned as a boutique stay where the kitchen is powered by Martina Caruso’s wild creativity (the youngest Italian chef to receive a Michelin star). Her delicate tasting menu featuring bagna cauda with raw sea urchins, octopus fagottino (homemade pasta), and a delectable breaded scabbardfish with tiger milk rolls out along a tiled terrace caught in a wild tangle of jasmine and bougainvillaea. Every step is an intensely flavoured (and refreshingly unfrothy) paean to Salina’s volcanic bounty, as well as the surrounding Tyrannian plunder. There’s a sense here that you’ve been invited to an aristocratic Italian’s island bolthole, where oil lamps cast a sultry amber glow across table conversation and linen curtains swell like sails in the hot breeze. The form here is to kick off the evening on the bistrot terrace, elevated just above the restaurant, scattered in old-world wrought iron benches and couples sipping the hotel’s signature Amarillo Brillo Mezcal cocktail. These are shaken up by Martina’s brother, Raphael Caruso, who glides smoothly between guests with a glint in his eye.
Address: Hotel Signum, Via Scalo, 15, 98050 Malfa Salina ME, Italy
Website: hotelsignum.it
Il Carretto, Cefalù
Tucked away along a nondescript side street in pretty Cefalù, Il Carretto is your authentic neighbourhood trattoria with a graciously priced, ever-changing menu covering all the Sicilian classics. The mustard walls, mahogany chairs and old archways paint a homely, traditional picture – with the clank of cutlery, conversation and unfiltered laughter rebounding off the exposed brick vaulted ceilings. This is a proper, authentic Sicilian restaurant, which, while unfussy, is still a crucible of pride and local foodie culture with high standards of service. Families tuck into platters piled high with muscles, shrimp, fried octopus and calamari, before moving on to ‘involtini di carne alla Siciliana’ (veal, beef, aubergine or swordfish rolls with a cheesy, pine nut filling) – all served on lava stone. You can’t go wrong with any of the buttery seafood pasta dishes, and for a traditional Sicilian pudding, try the cassata – a kitsch-looking sponge cake spiked generously with liqueur, densely layered with ricotta cheese, then decorated with the candied fruit you see painted across Sicilian pottery and fabrics.
Address: Il Carretto, Via Mandralisca, 66, 90015 Cefalù PA, Italy
Website: ristorante-il-carretto.webnode.it
Crocifisso, Noto
Noto has always been something of a Baroque heartbreaker, its honey-hued churches, and grand palazzi scrunched together in imposing fashion and its granita-sweet cafés spilling out onto a wide, sunny thoroughfare. Amid all this antiquity is a modern spin on tradition. Found in the upper part of the town’s historic centre, Crocifisso is one of Noto’s finest restaurants. Expect creative, colourful appetisers balanced on ceramic Moors’ heads and a subtly polished crowd sampling various wines in wafer-thin, oversized glasses. Marco Baglieri’s dogged commitment to Sicilian produce (and just generally eating well) keeps any of that moussey, frothy, laboratory-style flamboyancy at bay. Instead, generous portions (for a Michelin-starred restaurant) of eggplant arancino with Ragusano fondue, tuna steak with a pistachio and sesame crust and caponata, and sea urchin spaghetti are all flawlessly cooked in an elevated traditional style without being overembellished. Sommeliers recommend native labels from an extensive wine menu to wash down the seafood, and few leave this establishment without scoffing at least one cannoli.
Address: Crocifisso, Via Principe Umberto, 46/48, 96017 Noto SR, Italy
Website: ristorantecrocifisso.it
Gagini, Palermo
Occupying the brooding former studio of the 16th-century sculptor Antonello Gagini, this Palermo restaurant’s antiquity greatly contrasts the modern, slightly zany dishes on the tasting menu. Diners tuck under long, communal banqueting tables for chef Angelo Gennaro’s inventive combinations that nod, emphatically, to Sicilian classics with the island's finest produce –Nebrodi pig neck with celery puree and black cabbage; tortellini stuffed with musky octopus and Sicilian broccoli… The ancient stone walls, podiums holding ceramic Teste di Moro, and wrought iron candlesticks create a dramatic setting for these ambitious spins on the classics, all of which arrive on oversized statement plates or dark, glazed ceramics. Palermo’s energetic centre may buzz and sweat in the afternoon sun just outside, but in Gagini there’s a sense that you’ve slipped into a slower, more elevated dimension of raw squid and salted cedar, or beef with smoked oyster, washed down superbly with small-but-mighty Sicilian wines.
Address: Gagini, Via dei Cassari, 35, 90133 Palermo PA, Italy
Website: gaginirestaurant.com
Orazio Cordai, Catania
Along with its faded and somewhat melancholic baroque splendour, and its dishevelled sensibility compared to the more polished Palermo or golden-hued Syracuse, Catania is best known for its superb street food. Once you’ve ticked off the cathedral, the fishmarket and a few museums, it’s really all about the Tavola Calda Catanese – Catania hot tables where slightly scruffy restaurants or vendors churn out their specialities, hiding delectable morsels from tourists who beeline for the TripAdvisor haunts. Orazio Cordai is one of them, a nondescript hole-in-the-wall whose decor is never going to win any prizes but whose crispelle is legendary. Allegedly discovered by the Benedictine nuns of Catania, these Sicilian pastries are made from Semolina dough slathered in honey and citrus peel, which is then stuffed either with ricotta (in pastry balls) or anchovies (in a long shape), then fried in seed oil or lard. Work up an appetite at the nearby Collezione di Pupi Siciliani before pulling up one of Orazio Cordai’s terrace chairs (the dense, crispy arancini are also remarkably tasty).
Address: Orazio Cordai, Viale Libertà, 13, 95024 Acireale CT, Italy
Website: lnx.savia.it
Don Camillo, Syracuse
This Syracuse institution, right in the heart of Ortigia’s buttermilk antiquity, is an elegant old timer, with bags of vaulted ceiling and wrought iron chandelier character. Diners inspect the catches of the day amid the 15th century, uplit tufa walls, stacked wine bottles and vintage sketches. It’s worth noting that there’s a two-course rule here – far from a scoff-and-dash haunt before ticking off San Francesco d'Assisi all'Immacolata, Don Camillo demands a good two hours of your day to fully appreciate each mouthful of Chef Guarneri’s reliably classic, fish-focused Sicilian menu. Much like the ancient Greeks of Syracuse, great emphasis is placed on the wine pairing and the beauty of each dish for the three tasting menus, with highlights including the tuna steak with Nero d’Avola, a shrimp spaghetti with sea urchins (gracing the menu since 1986) and a Nebrodi black swine roast. Expect that particular blend of confident, meticulous and charismatic service that’s found in its purest form in old Italian restaurants, and the most divine selection of Sicilian puddings and gelato for a sweet-toothed finalé.
Address: Don Camillo, Via della Maestranza, 96, 96100 Siracusa SR, Italy
Website: ristorantedoncamillosiracusa.it