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
GaginiDaniele Ratti
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.