Top 10 wine region restaurants — Sicily

The first in our new series touring the best eateries in the most famous wine regions around the world. This week we’re taking a look at the Mediterranean island of Sicily.

The Sicilian passion for food and wine is hard to match, and so it is fitting that it is here that we kick-off our Top Wine Regions’ Best Restaurants series.

This volcanic region formed at the base of the active Mount Etna is famed as being a culinary melting pot.

Its proximity to the great empires of the last two millennia – from ancient Greece through to the Romans and the Ottoman empire – has resulted in cooking that is italian at its core, but with a flare for arabian fruits and spices as well other southern European influences.

Take a look at how the best restaurants in Sicily do their part to lay-on the island’s truly unique cuisine, as suggested by Sicilian journalist and food-fanatic Daniele Palumbo.

Images courtesy of Tripadvisor. 

10. Camelot (Catania)

With a name that harks back to times of conquest, Camelot boasts a huge selection of meat dishes cooked and prepared in the traditional way of Catania.

The speciality is the horse meat that, in this area of the picturesque city, is the best in all of Italy for quality and taste.

The restaurant also has a vast cellar of Sicilian wine produced from the nutritious soil on the slopes of the ‘great lady’, Mount Etna.

Piazza Federico di Svevia, 73, 95121 Catania.

9. La Locandiera (Catania)

Staying in the eastern city, La Locandiera is rightly famed for the fish risotto served to match beautifully with their selection of Sicilian white wines, even despite the restaurant being situated quite far from the coast.

The restaurant received a certificate of excellence in 2013 for it’s innovative cooking solutions, and expresses typical Sicilian flare in the fact that it has no set menu.

Via Catania, 55, 95027 San Gregorio di Catania.

8. La Grotta (Acireale)

Reportedly one of the best fish restaurant in Sicily, La Grotta is located in a small village by the sea, allowing the restaurant to only prepare the produce that the owner has caught the previous night.

Nestled on a small terrance in the port of Santa Maria la Scala, one can have an incredible food experience here.

Via Scalo Grande, 36, 95024 Acireale Catania.

7. Il Locandiere (Caltagirone)

A small and elegant restaurant in the Sicilian inland, Il Locandiere is famous for its knowledgable sommeliers able to suggest the best of the local wines produced far from the coast (mainly red and dry).

The best plate is the traditional dish of snails boiled with garlic and white wine, followed closely by the unique fish sausages.

Via Don Luigi Sturzo, 55, 95041 Caltagirone Catania, Italy.

6. La Madia di Licata (Agrigento)

In one of the most prototypically Sicilian towns on the island, this elegant Michelin-starred restaurant is famed all over Italy.

Everything cooked is a postcard of a Sicilian golden-age, with wine, tradition, innovation (and top desserts!) being the essence of the restaurant.

Corso Re Capriata F, 22, Licata Agrigento.

5. Al Covo dei Beati Paoli (Palermo)

Eat here for fantastic pizza and other traditional Sicilian food in a very particular and even somewhat mysterious atmosphere.

Here you can taste the food traditions specific to Palermo, markedly different from the other cities of the island.

Piazza Marina, 50, Palermo.

4. Ferro (Palermo)

Located in a beautiful square, enwrapped by old baroque architecture, Ferro is an extremely beautiful restaurant.

With few, select dishes being well-presented, incorporating fresh products and interesting experiments, the sense of rarity and exclusivity is heightened.

In summer, it is possible taste the wines of the area on special tables at the centre of the square to really take in the atmosphere.

Piazza Sant’Onofrio, 42, 90100 Palermo.

3. Profumi di Couscous (San Vito Lo Capo)

In the part of Sicily where the Arabian influence is strongest, this restaurant located in one of the most interesting areas of the island, giving life to the mix of Sicilian food with north African flavours.

The restaurant serves several kind of couscous with elements of the Sicilian tradition.

Here you can taste the particular wine of the wester part of Sicily where the grapes grow up near salt mines.

Viale Regina Margherita 80, San Vito lo Capo.

2. Osteria San Lorenzo (Marsala)

In the most Arabian city in Sicily for architecture and tastes, this lovely osteria is appreciated for its fish recipes, always prepared in a mix of Sicilian/Arabian flavours.

Fried calamari is one of the restaurant’s most famous courses, and don’t miss a taste of locally-produced olive oil, wines and spirits — especially a unique liquor produced just in this city and exported by the Cantine Florio: the Marsala.

Garraffa, 60, 91025 Marsala.

1. Da Vittorio (Porto Palo di Memfi)

Abundant with Sicilian passion, a meal at this menu-free restaurant is simply an incredible, long series of fish starters including red prawns, octopus in oil and lemon juice.

The mains might be pasta with sea urchins or catch-of-the-day grilled on the barbecue, and all served with delicious sicilian wine – white, of course.

Via Friuli Venezia Giulia, 9, 92013 Menfi Agrigento.