Food History of Palermo

Key eras

1. Phoenician and Greek foundations (8th century BC to 254 BC)

   Phoenicians founded a merchant colony in the Palermo area in the 8th century BC and called it Ziz, and the Greeks, who colonised Sicily between the 8th and 7th centuries BC, called the city Panormos. Wikipedia's Sicilian cuisine page says the Greek settlers left a taste for fish, wheat, olives, grapes, broad beans, chickpeas, lentils, almonds, pistachios and fresh vegetables.

2. Roman and Byzantine era (254 BC to 831)

   Rome took Palermo in 254 BC, and the geographer Strabo wrote that under the Empire it supplied large amounts of wheat to the capital. Byzantine rule lasted until 831, when the Aghlabid Arabs landed at Mazara del Vallo. Wikipedia's Sicilian cuisine page says the Byzantines favoured sweet and sour flavours and the Romans introduced lavish dishes based on goose.

3. Arab Sicily (831 to 1072)

   Arab rule brought sugar, citrus, rice, raisins, pine nuts and spices such as saffron, nutmeg and cinnamon. Palermo, called Balharm, became the capital of the emirate and displaced Syracuse as Sicily's main city. Granita is usually traced to the Arab sherbet, and the origins of arancina and cassata are also often placed in this period, though neither is proven.

   Taste it todayArancina

4. Norman and Hohenstaufen courts (1072 to 1266)

   Count Roger I took Palermo in 1072, and Roger II was crowned king there in 1130, ruling from the Palazzo dei Normanni. Wikipedia says the Normans and Hohenstaufens had a fondness for meat dishes. The Tabula Rogeriana of al-Idrisi, about the Kingdom of Sicily, is the oldest record of long thin pasta on the island, around the 12th century.

5. Aragonese and Spanish rule (1282 to the 19th century)

   Palermo came under the house of Aragon in 1282, and the Spanish later brought cocoa, maize, peppers, courgettes, potatoes and tomatoes from the New World. Noble households employed monsù cooks, whose cooking lies behind dishes such as sarde a beccafico, and convents shaped Palermo's sweets: sfincione is said to be an invention of the nuns of the San Vito monastery around the 17th century.

   Taste it todaySarde a beccaficoSfincione

6. Modern Palermo (19th century to 2026)

   In 1873 the Palermo pastry chef Salvatore Gulì introduced the glazed, candied-fruit decoration of the cassata at an exhibition in Vienna. Ristorante Charleston, opened on Via Magliocco in 1967, held two Michelin stars from 1974 to 1979, the first in Sicily and southern Italy by its own account. The 2026 Michelin Guide gives one star each to MEC Restaurant in Palermo and Limu in Bagheria.

   Taste it todayMEC Restaurant

Immigrant influences

Arab (831 to 1072)

Sugar, citrus, rice, raisins, pine nuts and spices such as saffron, nutmeg and cinnamon came with Arab rule, and Arab sherbet is the usual ancestor of Sicilian granita.

Jewish (medieval Palermo)

Jewish butchers are credited with creating pani câ meusa, and Sicilian cooking owes the Jewish community the habit of frying garlic in olive oil for sauces; caponata is historically linked to it.

Spanish (from 1282)

Spanish rule brought New World foods to Sicily, among them cocoa, maize, peppers, courgettes, potatoes and tomatoes.

Tunisian and North African (Trapani coast)

North African influence is clear in the couscous dishes of Trapani, in the west of Sicily, usually made with fish; Cantina Siciliana in Trapani lists a fish couscous.

Ballarò's present-day communities

Moltivolti, a social enterprise restaurant in Ballarò, says that 15 communities live and 25 languages are spoken in its neighbourhood, and cooks with that mix.

Taste it todayMoltivolti

Signature innovations

• Pani câ meusa: spleen and lung sandwich credited to Jewish butchers of Palermo
• Sfincione: pizza bread said to be the nuns of San Vito's invention, about the 17th century
  Taste it todaySfincione
• Cassata: sweet ricotta cake with marzipan, first documented in the 14th century
• Arancina: breadcrumbed saffron rice ball with a much debated origin
  Taste it todayArancina
• Pasta con le sarde: sardines, wild fennel, raisins and pine nuts, cooked without tomato in Palermo
  Taste it todayPasta con le sarde
• Frutta martorana: almond paste fruit, by tradition the nuns of the Martorana monastery's work