Above: Clams and mussels with oricchiette in pumpkin sauce at Trattoria da Antonio
Loosen your belt because I’m squeezing our reviews of meals we consumed in Catania into one post. Alas, no more than one cannolo though.
The alphabetical list starts out with Bat il Trattore. Tucked away in the Monserrato neighborhood where few tourists would ever stumble upon it, we were the only customers on the simple backdoor patio who were not longtime acquaintances of the mom-and-pop owners. But they made us feel welcome.
Sardines beneficata were wonderful, and tomatoes in the insalata nonna were truly vine-ripened. Eggplant and tomato pasta alla Norma tasted as though the owners’ own nonna cooked it for us.
Above: Bat il Trattore
After years of fine dining establishments, Chef Marco Cannizzaro wanted to step back. He opened Bavetta l’Osteria d’Oggi as a comfortable, contemporary neighborhood tavern preparing traditional Sicilian recipes. Don’t expect to get in without a reservation.
Anchovies added a spark to the ricotta filling of lightly battered squash blossoms. The cooked chard was far better than that offered in many restaurants, and roasting brought out an exquisite sweetness of onions with fresh mint. Pasta with a lemon mint pesto and shavings of tuna bottarga, dried roe sac of fish, worked well.
We are not big meat-eaters, so we rarely find ordering from that portion of a menu our favorite. A white wine ragu of veal and beef with paccheri seemed flavorless. Grilled lambchops were sliced so thinly, serving them rare would be next to impossible.
WARNING: Squeamish animal-lovers should stop here and skip down to the next restaurant.
I determined on this trip to try regional favorites I tend to avoid – meat-based ones. An Italian might argue old horses are better sustainably consumed after death than transformed into glue. I’m not entering that debate, but the flavor of traditional horse meatballs bored me. Box checked. Instead, bring on another round of onions and chard. And maybe semifreddo for dessert.
Above: Bavetta l’Osteria d’Oggi
How fast am I capable of flipflopping? We do like nice plump, juicy burgers when well-dressed. Remember, these meals are listed in alphabetical order, not sequentially. But we went to Fud twice. It’s not the sole outlet for Fud (Food), playing on English spelled phonetically for Italians.
Fud definitely speaks burgers well, burgers with buns that make it through the whole thing. We tested the bread through a blue cheese burger; a buffalo burger; an eggplant, zucchini, goat cheese and mint concoction; and even a gooey eggplant parmigiana version. The gorgonzola and pear salad received high marks from both of us.
Above: Fud
Salmon tartare with coucous and a house salad with tuna both suited our mood for something fresh. What remains a mystery is finding out the hours or what’s offered at the restaurant portion of Iris-Doc. It took us multiple walks-by to find it open.
The best way to find the place is to spy the line at its street-food sibling, where people crowd one another to stand on the sidewalk with iris balls. Iris balls traditionally are dough filled with ricotta, then battered and fried for dessert. Sounds Texas State Fair worthy. But Iris-Doc offers more than dessert version, they have extended the fillings to include a variety of savory choices, both meat and seafood. The line testified, but we opted for the wine bar option.
Above: Iris-Doc
La Pentolaccia Trattoria is an okay trattoria where we started out with a simple, refreshing fennel and orange salad. Seafood risotto was good, but not gourmet.
We raved about almost every dish we tasted the prior year in Ortigia and Palermo, yet Catania dares to tinker with some of our favorites. Take pasta Norma. Frying eggplant slices and laying them atop tomato-sauced pasta does not compare to tossing the fried cubes of eggplant in with the sauce. Okay, I’ll concede that maybe the other cities took the original concept and improved it, as Catania claims the dish originated there and is named in honor of native son Vincenzo Bellini’s opera, “Norma.”
Above: La Pentolacchia Trattoria
Me Cumpari Turiddu has a white-clothed-table, formality to it, as evidenced by the over-the-top, two-tiered presentation of petite breads offered as amuse-bouches.
Grilled vegetables were a homerun, but the three eggplant patties were ho-hum. Skewered swordfish spiedini were perfect, and swordfish worked well in a pasta dish. Pasta Norma, well, refer to above complaint. Couscous with a seafood broth was just right. The quality of ingredients and care in presentation is there, but anyone accustomed to tiriddu connoting Sicilian spicy hot will be disappointed overall.
Once again, please STOP HERE and skip to the next restaurant if you are even the least bit squeamish. The round, red spiral of thinly sliced carpaccio above is not composed of beets. Trusting the kitchen, we dared to sample the Sicilian favorite foreshadowed by the postage stamp at the top of this post. Donkey carpaccio. It was tender and flavorful, but that spiral was a long way to the center. Another box checked with no need to repeat.
Above: Me Cumpari Turiddu
Osteria Acqualavica represents an upscale selection with stone-arched ceilings creating the atmosphere of a handsome wine cellar. Eggplant polpette arrived on a bed of Parmesan and tomato sauce, while fresh mint brightened the flavor of tender slices of seared tuna. The star was a tuna risotto, ultra-lemony with the addition of juice and grated rind, too bright a taste for the lardo carpaccio on the side.
Above: Osteria Acqualavica
Razmataz may be a neighborhood wine bar, but the bartender shocked us by shaking up a proper margarita. Feta balanced out a tart apple, avocado and roasted beet salad. Pasta e sarde, sardines, and baked salmon with pilaf both were our mains. Mango sorbet with pineapple “ravioli” was unusual and refreshing. Oh, and did I mention the margaritas?
Above: Razmataz Wine Bar
This is important: One of us considers Sicilians greatest contribution to world cuisine to be cannoli. He tested it in almost every restaurant we visited in Ortigia and Palermo, but something happened. Catania wasn’t on the same page, or perhaps they were on the purists’ page? According to Sicilians, the best cannoli requires the best fresh ricotta, which is produced between November and May when sheep feast on fresh grass.
It was late September, and menus everywhere disappointed him – to the point I thought we were going to have to head down the road to Ortigia. Thank goodness there’s Savia, a pastry shop operating since 1897 and proclaimed by many as the home of the best cannoli in Catania. The confectionary must have found a calendar workaround because the enormous cannolo was judged delicious, and the ample size held him for about a week. On my end, I was pleased with my arancino for breakfast.
Above: Savia
So there we were. I’m jostling for a table with uncomfortable bar stools and Lamar in line to order at the window while the clean-up crew from the adjacent fish market hosed down its messy remnants. We did this not once, but twice. That’s how great Scirocco Sicilian Fish Lab is. Elbow your way in to partake of specialties like seafood couscous and huge conefuls of mixed fried seafood. With a pair of beers, enough for a meal for 20 euros.
Above: Scirocco Fish Lab
The handsome interior of Tantikkia Cucina e Vino felt like a comforting cocoon. The stalks of cavalo nero, or Tuscan kale, made a delicious side. Mains were a sesame-crusted tuna in a super-mild green tea sauce, and a delicious pasta with an abundance of much-adored anchovies.
Above: Tantikkia Cucina e Vino
Trattoria da Antonio was not just any neighborhood restaurant; it was our neighborhood restaurant. Unpretentious, straightforward, good food. Perfect sarde beneficcio for a starter. We stopped by several times for mussels and clams – sometimes sauteed, as in the photo below, and other times over pasta. Pastas shown are a trofie pasta with almond pesto, and rigatoni with tomato sauce and anchovies.
Above: Trattoria da Antonio
I feared we judged Scirocco’s sibling, Vuciata Kitchen Market, harshly. It was our first meal in Catania, and, hence, where we realized pasta with anchovies in Catania lacked the sauteed wild fennel, onions and raisins combination central to its Sicilian cousins’ versions. Roasted vegetables, caponata, and pasta with clams and mussels were all fine. But Antonio sure shared a more generous plate of clams and mussels.
The real problem for us, though, was not the restaurant’s fault. Hordes disgorged from large cruise ships swarmed by like a tsunami swallowing the small tourist-central street and filling every seat in every restaurant. Always check the schedule for cruise ships before heading that direction.
Above: Vuciata Kitchen Market
The Godfather, 1972
Postcards from Barton Springs 