If in 2016 you sat down at the table of some good Sicilian restaurant you know from you that it was a prosperous year.
"Tradition" has been the key word also in the year that is about to end, often interpreted with warmth and wisdom. But there were also chefs who were able to cook on the island in a different way, and in any case full of intuition.
If you have not been to Sicily, but you are counting on remedying it as soon as possible, then the end-of-year guide compiled by Dissapore will be useful.
We have been in many Sicilian restaurants to decide which were the best 25 of 2016, before scrolling through the list but we explain briefly the criteria adopted to draw it up.
Kitchen
The role of the chef is changing. But net of this transformation the point remains: the kitchen. Beyond communication or entrepreneurial skills, how do you cook this chef? How did we eat?
Atmosphere
Things that make us feel at home. The restaurant is the place to taste, of course, but also to understand what the chef wants to communicate with his dishes, to enjoy the atmosphere of his restaurant, the furniture, colors, details.
Service
Did the staff manage to make us feel special customers? The sommelier was our guardian angel, attentive to every minimum need, but without being intrusive? Did the maître not overshadow the renunciation of the nine (9) course super-menu-degustation, which we frankly did not feel like facing? On the contrary, he smiled complacently at our request to choose a couple of dishes from the menu.
Value for money
At the end of the accounts, the account arrives. Was it worth it? Attention, we are not talking about the cheapest place, because even an expensive one can have a good value for money. We are talking about what allows us to have a real culinary experience (as we say today).
Consistency
This is a criterion that traditional restaurant guides do not take into great consideration. That is important, however. Is there a harmony between the dishes on the menu, between the place where we are and the personality of the chef?
Exotic inspired dishes in a restaurant that makes the zero kilometer its philosophy have little to do with it. Like grandmother's dish, it is on the menu of a young creative chef's restaurant just because it is fashionable.
Well, having said that, we are ready to tell you about the ranking of the 25 best restaurants in Sicily in 2016.
25# NOT ASSIGNED
It's the position that we leave to your imagination if we forgot a restaurant that was somehow decisive.
We would have liked to try Cuvée du jour by Carmelo Thirtycost, but due to a very limited seasonal opening it was not possible, which is why it is absent from this ranking. We will remedy this next year. Don't be surprised if you miss the restaurants of the Aeolian Islands: they deserve a separate ranking.
24# ANDREAS (TAORMINA) - ANDREAS ZANGELR
A lucky case. One of the few that combines in a pleasant way the Austrian origins of the expert chef and owner Andreas Zangelr with the richness of Sicilian ingredients
After a long stay at the Casa Grugno restaurant, Michelin star until 2012, and at the Bellevue restaurant of the Metropole Hotel in Taormina, Zangelr now offers an accessible cuisine, without frills that presents the only risk of diminishing his talent.
You can enjoy a spontaneous and informal evening at Andreas in Taormina, where the tones of red prevail.
23# LITTLE PALM BABY BAGS
The scenario is that of Vucciria, the historic market of Palermo. The Gagini restaurant, with its Spartan charm, is the ideal complement to the place where it is located, still curious and interesting.
The deliberately out of fashion furniture, chosen perhaps in a modern store, is the ideal backdrop for the classic scenes of the Vucciria that you can peek through the window.
22# THE CARAT (CATANIA) - CARLO SICHEL
A banker who became a chef who brings his restaurant to the list of the best in Sicily, can? Perhaps for a large part of your colleagues, it is not. We liked it very much.
Carlo Sichel is the interpreter of a simple cuisine but with harmonious and well-balanced dishes, fragrant, with pleasant brown colours, without free excesses and other spoiled cooking travails.
If it is the right evening, with wine and food as only Sichel can, then it is worth stopping at Carato for a long time, despite the fact that the environment does not give any particular emotions.
21# ZASH (STORED) - RACY GIUSEPPE
A palmento surrounded by nature hosts Zash: self-defined as a "country boutique hotel". A place where you choose to go, intended for customers with evolved tastes. Here on Dissapore we continue to call them gastrophanatics.
The chef is young and humble, though he already has respectable experiences.
In his dishes there is a sense of gratitude for the experiences that have made him grow, the important stages of his training.
For example in 'like a Pollock painting' dedicated to chef Massimo Mantarro, from whom he takes his inspiration.
For the rest we tasted glorious tempure, the best on the list, and other dishes of magnetic beauty that should be served with a pinch of extra attention from the room staff.
20# PHOENIX (RAGUSA) - CARLO RUE
A hotel restaurant with something more. What makes the difference is the attitude to welcome shown by La Fenice, a Michelin star. In particular, by the maître sommelier Marco Muriana, reliable point of reference in the room.
Between sometimes extravagant mise en place and concentrated flavours, chef Carlo Ruta's dishes are small manuals of culinary technique.
Wooden floor, leather sofas and a hall surrounded by large windows. Modern ambience with a certain warmth.
19# CHORISTER (CALTAGIRONE) - COLONET AND PACTS
They have the air of a cat and a fox, but let's be clear, the combination of the dynamic and communicative chef and the other, shaded and taciturn, is a winner.
The chefs are Domenico Colonnetta and Francesco Patti. The restaurant is Coria, a Michelin star, recently renovated (and less badly).
Now it's a place of temperament, warm, contemporary and in motion. With the interior divided into two small rooms that welcome without too much formality, with lightness and spirit.
Enthusiastic about change and pragmatic, interpreters of light and refined cuisine, chefs share roles.
In doing so, they are able to maintain the same level of Coria's offer and dedicate themselves to many other activities, which have not distracted them too much for now.
18# CARMELA WOMAN (STOWED) - ANDREA SHELLAC
A large garden with olive trees, Mediterranean and tropical plants. This is the setting that welcomes you to La cucina di Donna Carmela, a restaurant between Mount Etna and the sea, complicated to find if you do not live in the area.
The service was impeccable with the discreet but reassuring presence of sommelier Alessandro Mancuso.
Andrea Macca is a chef to keep an eye on, making personal choices and his dishes make clear the desire to go further, to win new awards.
Between beautiful and scenically presented dishes perhaps lacks a bit of constancy, otherwise Donna Carmela would be much higher.
17# TO THE FOGHER (ARMERINA SQUARE) - ANGEL TRAIN
Do not take it for an anonymous local passage, even if seen from the outside it might seem so. Fogher is worth the stop, and he is worth it.
Almost a mountain restaurant, cozy and warm, seems made for the conviviality of the holidays. The ideal place for a Christmas lunch eaten away from home.
Mediterranean cuisine based on roasts and game with Nordic-style dishes, unusual at these latitudes. But "unusual" is also the chef.
Looking at him it seems like an old-fashioned cook, but it is the small licences he takes, combined with a great deal of confidence in the designer cuisine, that make it indispensable in the Sicilian scene.
Territorial dishes interpreted with intelligence and evolved spirit.
16# SHALAI (LINGUAGLOSSA) - HOLY YOUNGSTERS
We are on the most beautiful side of Etna. The Shalai restaurant, Michelin star conquered just a year ago, is located in a renovated 19th century building, imposing but quiet, which houses two small rooms on the ground floor that are deliberately dimly lit.
But more than mysterious, Giovanni Santoro's cuisine warms the heart, in absolute harmony with the flavors that the mountain offers generous.
Exemplary example is the veal with a knife tip served with cheese fondue and juniper berries of Etna, presented in a cloche that enhances the perfect smoking with pine needles.
15# VOTAVOTA (SAMPIERI) - CAUSARAN AND PIGEON
Il Votavota is the only temporary restaurant in this ranking. The bright chalet along the sea of Sampieri, poignant at the end of the season, has managed to impress an indelible memory on the lucky ones who have tried it.
A fleeting experience lasted 150 days, from June 4 to October 31, 2016 with Peppe Causarano and Antonio Colombo in the kitchen, good at embellishing with personal ideas the excellent fish cuisine.
Despite their young age, the two chefs managed the temporary restaurant, sensing the needs of their customers and adapting their potential to give the best.
14# EIGHTH NOTE (PALM) - VLADIMIRE FLOUR
Near the Foro Italico, in the silent Via Butera of the late nineteenth century noble palaces, this restaurant is strikingly well lit, with a sober and linear appearance, which seems like a place extremely in the way. Even a bit serious.
In fact, as you spend the evening, you will notice that the Eighth Note never lacks a subtle vein of joy.
Already in the service, friendly, practical and spontaneous, not to mention the chef, Vladimiro Farina, wittily posing for this photo.
Its dishes are delicious, cheerful. They tell the story of the territory but with witty inventions and some successful upheavals such as the unusual presentations.
If you want to dine at the Eighth Note remember to book well in advance, we are talking about one of the busiest places in Palermo.
13# TOWER FARM (MODICA) - PEPPE BARONE
The Fattoria delle Torri was originally a theatre in the centre of Modica. A good renovation has given romantic interiors pleasantly highlighted by the square lines of the green sofas.
In the first half of 2016, cooking was entrusted to Palermo-based Ninni Radicini, who then moved on to Locanda Gulfi. Now the patron Peppe Barone, who was the master of many Sicilian cooks, has once again called the kitchen with the help of two young students, Emilia Iacono and Gianluca Cataldi.
Lunch is a journey through Sicily: from the countryside around Modica to the gravels of Milazzo, up to the dunes of Santa Maria del Focallo.
12# CRUCIFIX (KNOWN) - MARKAGLIERI
The one of the Crucifix of Noto is the most intimately linked to the Sicilian tradition.
Marco Baglieri, however, has succeeded in a small enterprise: to mix better than others the history of island cuisine, safeguarding the contemporary.
And without burrs in either direction.
Fully local character even in the interiors, contemporary but not able to make a Sicilian feel out of place
11# QQUQUINAQU (CATANIA) - WHITE CELANOUS
Solidarity between women has nothing to do with this. Bianca Celano is a concentrate of cunning and Sicilianity, shyness and practical sense, character and sardonic making.
All qualities that are reflected in its dishes, today among the most interesting on the island, prepared in the kitchen of the local Via Umberto: half a restaurant, the other his loft.
Always curious is the mise en place, with many ideas to steal and experiment at home, appreciated especially in the social table at the center of the room.
In summer, a nice terrace offers pleasantness and greater intimacy.
10# THE OSTE AND THE SACRISTAN (LICATA) - BONSIGNORE PEPPERCORNS
Imagine crossing a popular street in the historic city center, not those embellished by a forced recovery but left as it is. A route that crosses the marina of Licata leads to the port, where stray dogs meet and the waste water from the fish farms is trampled underfoot.
If you stop at the Host and the Sacristan to welcome you you find Beppe Bonsignore, with the style of a country gentleman who became an innkeeper, but who cooks like a star chef.
The Host and the Sacristan deserve a separate review, all his own, that tells the true grace of fish and vegetable dishes.
Extravagant dishes, from unconventional presentations that alone are worth the trip to Sicily.
9#ACURSE (MODICA) - CRAPAROUS ACCUROSE
Accursio Craparo will have had his good reasons to leave La Gazza Ladra di Modica after winning the Michelin star.
The fact is that that restaurant has now closed while Craparo has taken over the star in his own restaurant. Behind the courteous and affable ways must hide an iron character.
We have already said that we prefer presentations that do not go unnoticed, almost sculptural, such as "the artichoke" and "the chestnut.
The restaurant is linked to the land and often takes on the colors of nature, trees and meadows.
8# The BAVAGLINO (TERRASINI) - JUSEPPE COSTA
A white white on the walls for the Bavaglino, counterpointed by a majolica floor from the 1920s and by the presence of a modern sculpture reminiscent of a tree. Both are very colorful.
Small restaurant, with essential furniture, with a terrace used only in the summer overlooking the sea of Terrasini.
In Giuseppe Costa's kitchen tradition has a fleeting role, his gaze is turned towards the future but without concessions to passing fashions.
A chef to be carefully followed, halfway between those who modernize the cuisine of the past, reviving it, and the specialists who invent contemporary cuisine.
Given the tight spaces, sometimes you can intercept some washed head turned by the chef to his helpers, always skillfully disguised by the staff of the room, especially the sommelier, calm and smiling on every occasion.
7# BYE BYE BLUES (WORLDLY) - BLESSED PATRICIAN
Elegance and refined atmosphere. Everything at Mondello's Bye Bye Blues, from the environment to the service, from the kitchen to the chef, speaks the same language.
A place that enchants like its chef and owner, Patrizia Di Benedetto.
Sicilian view, feline eyes and pronounced nose, mild and wise character, intense and scratching, that like a cat observes without ever lowering his eyes.
Patrizia knows how the rules are subverted. Starting with the role of women in professional kitchens.
A cuisine lightened by the classic excesses of many Sicilian dishes. If it weren't because the ingredients remain typical of the island, one could speak of Japanese inspiration.
6# THE FEMALE CAPER (TAORMINA) - AUGUSTINE
Freshness, sauces in bright shades, reasoned improvisation. Whether it's summer or winter, this is the cuisine of Pietro D'Agostino, chef at La Capinera.
Reserved, little inclined to discover all aspects of his nature as a chef, he reveals sensitivity and talent (also chromatic) with dishes such as tagliolini al nero with tagliatelle of cuttlefish and mint pepper, passatine of tomato and onion of Giarratana.
And then raw and memorable crustaceans, finally tomato, another recurring theme of his cuisine.
The restaurant's scenery completes the picture, where white and large windows prevail, allowing you to see the blue sea of Taormina.
5# THE PUPPETS OF THE BAGHERIA - TONY THE COCO
I Pupi is the Sicilian restaurant that leads the ranking of Dissapore those with two Michelin stars. It is thanks to the irresistible cuisine of Toni Lo Coco, who transfers sensuality and other aspects of his personality to the dishes of the restaurant.
A seductive route, the 7-course seafood menu that manages to be delicate first then savory, decisive, even visceral as in the stigghiola bluefin tuna.
The small dining room also tells of good taste and audacity, with a service that formally respects the rules of starred restaurants but without the grace that could be expected.
Note: among the tasting menus of I Pupi there is one, with three courses at a cost of 35.00 euro, which is the cheapest offered by star restaurants in Sicily.
4# THE CUPBOARD (LICATA) - PINE CUTTER
They have written it many times that the cuisine of Pino Cuttaia manages to hypnotize so well done, a continuous invitation to play, almost as if we were children to marvel at, often full of memories.
What else is it if not a story told with talent and natural charisma pasta and shellfish soup with almond grains, which leaves a pot on the table to remember the generosity of Sicily, sometimes even excessive.
An unforgettable scent of embers comes from amberjack cooked in ash oil with lighted almond shells. Moments of Sicilian life stopped by a scent, starry adaptations of the domestic tables of the island.
Pine Cutter - La Madia - Delicate
The aim of La Madia, which has undergone a profound restructuring to which Dissapore is not completely alien, is to provide the most neutral background possible to the exciting succession of courses in Cuttaia.
A timid star always brighter.
3# THE CATHEDRAL (HYBRID RAGUSA) - SULTANIC CICCIO
Ciccio Sultan is a deity of Trinacria. The best chef in communication, he has also become a skilled entrepreneur. The fate of island gastronomy seems to be in his hands, as evidenced by young chefs who pay homage to him with lots of dishes dedicated.
In his restaurant, Il Duomo di Ragusa Ibla, you will meet him in every corner: in the dandy style of the furniture, in the style of a scholar of the Sicilian tradition of dishes, in his signature on the wine label.
An Istrian and funny character, completed by the professionalism and courtesy of the staff room with the wonderfully theatrical style of the sommelier in great evidence.
As for the kitchen, Sultan is now a sort of magician who presents paccheri standing, shrimp in the air, wings flying and clouds melting.
A researcher never tired of the most unobtainable ingredients of Sicily, he is fascinated by both his mastery of contemporary techniques and his knowledge of the territory.
Eye: lunches and dinners that leave you satolli at the limit of the challenging.
2# DON SERAFINO INN (RAGUSA) - CANDIAN WIN
At Locanda Don Serafino, a former stone stable in Ragusa Ibla, the approach to Sicilian cuisine is simpler and more immediate than the Cathedral of Ciccio Sultano.
A choice that in the first ones could leave you stranded, but we are telling you the case where the simple things are also the best.
Instinctive and direct dishes, as if they were the courses of a home lunch, amaze the perfection. A precise search for desired flavors that are almost sculpted.
An exceptional result that can be easily perceived by anyone, but which conceals an uncommon mastery of the trade.
Thanks to Vincenzo Candiano, Arabic traits and proud, cautious and far-sighted character. Chef on the rise who even manages to exalt himself in desserts.
His are probably the best in Sicily, and the menu proposals make him the best Sicilian pastry chef of 2016.
1# PRINCE OF CERAMI (TAORMINA) - MAXIMUM MANTARRO
The Prince of Cerami is the best Sicilian restaurant of 2016 according to Dissapore.
Not the only one capable of making the lucky diners feel at the centre of a fairy tale, but the one who has managed to do it better in recent times.
For the stunting beauty of the place. For the Franciscan setting of service. For the engaging style of Sicilian cuisine.
Seven tables, comfortable armchairs, thick carpets, sinuous curtains, sommeliers and waiters discreetly available, international clientele who visibly enjoys the dishes on the menu, even alone.
And then there are endless possibilities for choice. Bread, water, oil, coffee and wine. In summer a terrace with a view of Mount Etna in Taormina, the most beautiful city in Sicily.
The chef, Massimo Mantarro, is certainly one of the best on the island, but not the most famous. Shy, sincere, concrete, tireless. He talks about his work as any fan would do, without any foolishness to impose.
In summer, as usual, its cuisine is enhanced with spaghetti, eggplant beads, round tomatoes, a mountain of salted ricotta and Mazara red shrimp.
Simplicity alternated with extreme elegance as in the transparency of shrimp, a dish composed of Mantarro with refinement and grace.
Try at least once the chips that the chef derives from every ingredient, flavor, vegetable, basil or artichoke.
Like the remake of the cassata. He is also skillful in revisiting the classics, Mantarro, a mandatory and challenging stage for every Sicilian chef.
Note: Prince Cerami, open only from April to October, is also the most expensive of our rankings with the tasting menu at 150 euros. It is also the only one that requires a credit card when booking and a jacket for men.