Giorgio Locatelli’s secret Sicily
It’s my island of dreams
RELAX... THERE IS NO DANGER FROM THE MAFIA!
Italian cuisine’s legendary Locatelli gives an insider’s tour of his secret Sicily
I’M A northern Italian from Lake Maggiore: if you’re born on the wrong side of the lake you’re Swiss! It’s a very beautiful place – but, as I was to discover, Italy has other sweet spots.
Sicily has had a bad image – the backdrop for many films about the Mafia – with the feeling it might be an uncomfortable place to visit. When I was growing up in northern Italy, Sicily wasn’t seen as a place you would want to go to. It was seen as too dangerous and dirty, populated by lazy people who would take your money.
After I did my national service I went abroad to Switzerland, Paris and London – so I was 30 before I first visited Sicily. When I opened my London restaurant Zafferano, I was invited to Sicily for a wine and olive oil tasting trip. I arrived in Palermo and our itinerary meant driving from Agrigento to Porto Palo on the southern coast. I was very surprised by what I saw. I had been told that the people were lazy – it’s not true, there isn’t an inch of this island which is not looked after perfectly. It was all so beautiful.
I also didn’t realise how big an island it is – the largest in the Mediterranean
Sicily was a very strategic place: in the middle of the Med it sat on the major trade routes between Africa and Europe and the Middle East and Western Europe. It was occupied by every major civilisation, starting with the Phoenicians and including the Greeks, the Romans, the Arabs, the Normans, the French and the British… everybody wanted a piece of it.
As a chef, what struck me was that the island had its own fusion cuisine, a coming together of all the cultural influences to create something very special.
Visit San Vito lo Capo on the north east coast and you’ll discover everyone eats couscous (every September they have a big couscous international festival). Around Catania, for example, there is a Greek flavour to the food. After that first visit, I rented a house on the island for a month every year so I could discover everywhere, from Cefalu down to Noto. And contrary to what many think, visitors are safe – there is no danger from the Mafia!
One of my best experiences was filming the BBC series Sicily Unpacked where we spent four weeks driving around the island. I taught art critic Andrew GrahamDixon about the pleasures of Sicilian food and he guided me around the wonderful art treasures.
I was flown by helicopter – over Mt Etna – from Catania to the Aeolian Islands with the island spread before me like a wonderful banquet. I ended up on the island of Stromboli with its magnificent volcano which bubbles away day and night.
To see the island at its best, visit at Easter when there are lots of processions and traditional feasts.
1THE SIGHTS AND CITIES YOU WON’T WANT TO MISS
Mt Etna: Europe’s tallest active volcano is a wonderful place. Coming from the north of Italy I’ve seen lots of mountains, and skied down many of them. But nothing compares with the excitement of going up Etna: it really is another world.
Palermo: You must visit the island’s capital. It never used to be somewhere that tourists thought about visiting – but the bustling centre is the heart of the island.
Taormina: Probably the most visited place. I would try to avoid it during the peak holiday season but come when it’s quieter for the fabulous view of Mt Etna from the amphitheatre. I was there last summer for an Andrea Bocelli concert – i t was t he most sublime experience.
Messina: Is a fascinating town which gives its name to the Strait of Messina (from here the Italian mainland seems within touching distance). It’s worth visiting for the lovely Norman Cathedral, with its Gothic portal, and astronomical clock on the bell tower.
Visit the regional museum here where a room is dedicated to Caravaggio – with his two masterpieces, The Adoration Of The Shepherds and The Raising Of Lazarus.
BEST ICE CREAM IN THEWORLD – WITH WILD STRAWBERRIES
2 FROM BEACH RETREATS TO CITY CHIC… WHERE TO STAY Sicily was short of good hotels but the situation has improved a lot – not just new hotels but also some great bed and breakfast places.
Palermo: I always like to stay at the Grand Hotel Et Des Palmes, the old hotel in the centre of the city. It’s an 1870s building in the grand Art Nouveau style and a real piece of Sicilian history.
Menfi: I love La Foresteria, which is the winery resort of the Planeta Estate, owned by a family of winemakers who have been farming here for 500 years. It’s an away-from-it-all place at the heart of the island’s stunning coastal landscape. The hotel is among the vineyards.
You can relax by the beach or treat yourself to the flavours of Sicilian cuisine and the pleasures of authentic family hospitality. Other wine makers also offer B&B along the Strada del Vino – Sicily’s ‘wine road’ – which starts north of Palermo and heads south. San Vito lo Capo: This is a fantastic seaside town in the north-west, a place known for its beach, which is like something you’d find in the Maldives, in a sheltered bay overlooked by Mount Monaco. The Hotel Ghibli is a real gem of a place, run with love and care by Matteo and his brother. It also has a great restaurant. Everything you could want for an unforgettable holiday. Linguaglossa, Catania: Situated at the foot of Mt Etna, the Hotel Federico II is a great familyrun hotel. Stromboli: The Hotel Carasco was one of the i sland’s first hotels and remains one of the best. The ideal base for anyone planning to climb the volcano.
3 GORGE ON THE FANTASTIC FOOD I N THESE HOTSPOTS
Da Vittorio, Porto Palo: My absolute favourite – a restaurant with rooms right on the beach run by my friend Vittorio, who is also from the north of Italy. He doesn’t have a menu, offering you meals created from the best food available on the day – the fish comes straight from the nearby fishing port. Vittorio takes his top off when he cooks: he’s what I call the ‘real’ naked chef! La Locanda del Colonnello, Modica: A firm favourite of the ‘slow food’ brigade. Courses include the earthy chickpea soup and the white ricotta and marjor amstuffed ravioli. La Grotta Della Vucciria, Palermo: Look out for this unpretent i ous working- cl ass j oi nt in Palermo’s market. It serves food – but few people come for the pizza. Its main attraction is that it has the best aperitif in Sicily. It’s a sort of negroni made with vermouth, gin or vodka or whatever. It’s dangerous stuff: when I came here with Andrew I warned him that he would be drunk after a couple of glasses. I’m afraid, he didn’t listen to me… Caffe Sicilia, Noto: This marvellous establishment serves the best ice cream in the world. Frozen desserts are made with ultrafresh seasonal ingredients – visit in spring time, for example, and your i ce cream may well be served with wild strawberries.
4 MARVEL AT MINDBLOWING HISTORICAL SITES
Pi azza Armerina: The Vil l a Romana del Casale has mosaics showing Roman ladies wearing what look very much to the modern eye like bikinis. For me there are even more interesting mosaics (the area has the largest and most varied collection of Roman mosaics in the world, for which the site has been designated as a Unesco World Heritage Site).
The most incredible are in the dining room. When the Romans dined reclining on the floor, their meals would end up spread out around them. The mosaics anticipate this by including little bits of food – a little bit of shell or a piece of prawn. It’s magical.
Agrigento: First-time visitors are astonished when they discover the Valley Of The Temples. It’s actually not a valley at all , but a hill, on which eight Greek temples were built in a Doric style around 500 BC.
To one side of the site is the fabulous Temple of Heracles. The best preserved is the Temple of Concordia, which was converted into a church in the 6th Century. People are shocked when they see how big and beautiful these temples are.