a drifting thought

We started our year of travel with 3 and a half weeks in Sicily. The dolce vita feeling was strong as we indulged ourselves in countless gelatos (for C) and sorbets (for lactose intolerant me) and a drink at many a piazza. A week or so in we had to take a good hard look at the budget, having treated the prior 7 days a little like a holiday and not the start of a world trip. Heavy debates followed; should we spent less on aperol spritz? (probably). Should we be eating out if we have a kitchen? (not really). And finally, should we be cutting down on gelato/sorbet, is going every day overkill? (absolutely not, this is something we cannot replicate elsewhere!).

Correspondingly, the following guide focuses on gelaterias and good value.

Palermo

A Sicilian friend reccomended Trattoria Al Vecchio Club Rosanero, fittingly full of the football club Rosanero paraphanalia. It was possibly the tastiest and best value dinner of our whole trip. They serve half portions of pasta from around 3 euros. We ate sword fish caponata, then pasta alla norma and a spaghetti dish made by cooking down broccoli with sardines. All delicious.

Trapani – Erice

Perched on a mountain overlooking Trapani, ancient Erice makes a lovely afternoon trip. Avoid the tourist trap expensive restaurants here, and go for La Tonda Fritta for fresh delicious arancini and then Gelateria Liporati for gelato and sorbet with all natural ingredients. The winning gelato, being churned fresh before us, was almond with candied pischios and pistachio cream with lemon peel. We also had amazing pomegranate granita.

Trapani – city centre

Definitely try the local specialities – pesto made with tomatoes and almonds, and couscous with fish broth. Most places do them well but we didn’t find one particular spot that jumped out. What did stand out though was a meal at Caupona Taverna di Sicilia, where C had what he said was the best pasta dishes of his life: spaghetti with basil cream, chilli, garlic and parsley, with raw red prawns (a famous Sicilian export) on top.

Bonus mention for a butchers and deli near our Airbnb, called Carni & Sfizi Di Luigi E Vale where we got delicious inexpensive rottiserie chicken and roast potatoes to take back for dinner.

Agrigento

If you are serious about breakfast, stay at Le Terrazze di Pirandello purely for their incredible spread with all local ingredients explained to you by their awesome chatty team.

They also recommended us Ristorante Ruga Reali, just round the corner, where I had the best pasta norma of the trip.

Ortigia

For the vegans and IBS people amongst you… or just anyone after something a little more meaningful and different – check out Zenzero, a tiny place run by a lovely family focussing on vegan and vegetarian organic food who are very accomodating of any ditary requirements. The pasta used ancient grains and had a whole extra depth of flavour. We had vegan pistachio pesto and a creamy ravioli, both very good. We did however feel it was a little expensive, although all prices on Ortigia were steep so hard to tell.

Definitely go to Gusto for dark chocolate sorbet and pistachio gelato.

Noto

The greatest pasta we have eaten, hands down. We found Pasta Fresca da Sabrina by accident, passing by our way to find a local super market in a random part of the city. As always, this ends up being the best way to find those innocuous yet knock out places. Sabrina sells fresh pasta and vats of freshly cooked meals for takeaway, but also has just a couple little tables. Whilst we were eating a constant stream of locals came in to collect their lunch order, possibly disturbed by the two people making strange drooling noises and scraping every last bit of sauce out with their spoons! We had ravioli with sage butter and with a pork ragu that was hands down the best one I have eaten.

Apart from obsessing over Sabrina’s pasta, we also ate some good pizza at Pizzeria Casamatta and greatly enjoyed the ‘chocolate cellar’ at Sabadi.

Gusto, our Ortigian gelato supplier of choice… also have a branch here, but wierdly it was not as good and the staff were unfriendly.

Milazzo

For great coffee, or cocktails and nibbles go to Larabico.

And the final sorbet entry of this post – for the best sorbet ever coupled with extremely good prices, go to Sike gelato. C said the pistachio gelato was the best one yet and I was spoilt for choice with 3 different dark chocolate sorbets at varying cocoa percentages. It was so good that when we passed back from Milazzo on our way to the airport, we detoured, lugging all our stuff, for one last visit here.

Salina

We spent a dreamy week on Salina, where we had a well kitted out apartment and so with an eye on our budget, cooked all our meals. However, we made exceptions for two places…

Maracaibo is a beach bar on Scario beach, one of the best on Salina. Given this location and that it’s the only option, it’s really refreshing that they have extremely reasonable prices for their tasty sandwiches, salads & lemon granita. For example, a large tuna salad cost 7 euros.

Da Alfredo in Lingua, is widely recommended as the best place in the Aolian Islands, if not all of Sicily, to have granita. It deserves its hype for sure. The granita is of a very different breed to what you get elsewhere. You have actual chunks of your favourite ingredient, and a real rich flavour far removed from the often very sugary watery approach that’s more common. It may make all other granitas taste like a flavoured slush puppy in comparison. Its other speciality of pane cunzato (a local speciality of fried bread with toppings) was huge, 1 at 14 euros was more than enough for two hungry people at lunch and it tasted…. amazing!

We only scratched the tip of the iceberg of eating in Sicily we felt in our time there and very much look forward to returning on holiday and being able to try more restaurants and especially more seafood. In the meantime, wishing everyone happy eating and to remember not to burn your mouth on arancini balls, but wait the full 5 minutes you are told to.