Sicilian food is not Italian food with more sun. It is a separate cuisine that happens to be inside Italy — built on aubergines and citrus the Arabs planted, saffron and rice they brought, and a sweet-and-sour instinct that no other Italian region shares.
The list below is not the twenty most famous things. It is six dishes that are worth organising a meal around, with the place on the island where each is at its best. Everything links into our index, so you can go from reading to a table.
1. Pasta con le sarde
The island’s emblem dish and the one most visitors never order. Fresh sardines, wild fennel from the hillsides, pine nuts, raisins and a bloom of saffron — sweet and savoury at once, which is the Arab influence in a single forkful. It should taste slightly of the sea and slightly of dessert, and if it does not, it was made without the fennel.
Season matters. Wild fennel is a spring plant. Between October and February you will be served a version made with the bulb, which is not the same thing.
2. Arancini
Fried rice balls, and a topic people argue about. In Palermo they are round and called arancine; in Catania they are cone-shaped, called arancini, and the shape is said to echo Etna. Both cities consider the other wrong.
The classic filling is ragù with peas and a little mozzarella. The other one worth ordering is al burro — béchamel and ham — which is what Sicilians actually eat at eleven in the morning standing at a bar.
You do not sit down for an arancino. You eat it in four bites, in the street, while it is still too hot.
3. Caponata
Aubergine, celery, olives and capers, cooked down and finished with vinegar and a little sugar. Every family has a version and half of them will tell you the others put in too much of something. It is served at room temperature, never hot, and it is better on the second day.
The capers to look for come from Pantelleria and Salina — packed in salt, not brine, and worth carrying home.
4. Cannoli di ricotta
The shell should be filled in front of you. This is not a preference — a cannolo filled an hour ago has a soft shell, and a soft shell is a failed cannolo. If the tray on the counter is already full, walk on.
The ricotta should be sheep’s milk, drained, and sweetened lightly. Candied peel and pistachio at the ends are traditional; chocolate chips are a concession to tourists, and there is nothing wrong with them.
5. Pesce spada alla siciliana
Swordfish, which the boats out of Messina have hunted the same way for centuries. Cooked simply — olive oil, lemon, capers, tomatoes, a little oregano — because the fish is the point. Ask whether it is local; a great deal of what is served is not.
Where to eat it: the strait between Messina and Calabria, or anywhere on the eastern coast where the boat comes in that morning.
6. Granita siciliana
Not a slushie. Real granita is churned so the crystals stay fine, and it is eaten for breakfast with a warm brioche col tuppo — you dip the brioche into it. Almond, lemon, mulberry, coffee and pistachio are the classics; almond is the one to start with.
Sicilians eat it before ten in the morning, in summer, sitting outside. Ordering one after dinner will be served without comment, and will mark you.
Building a trip around this
These six do not live in one place. Pasta con le sarde and cannoli are western — Palermo and its hill towns. Arancini and granita are eastern, around Catania and the Etna slopes. Swordfish belongs to the strait. A week driving the north coast picks up all of them.
Our Sicily food route does exactly that in six days, and every stop on it links to a place in the index.
