The plates that define Palermo: what they are, and where to eat the canonical version.
The plates that define Palermo: what they are, where they came from, and where to eat the canonical version.
Pani câ meusa is a sesame-seeded vastedda bun filled with veal spleen and lung boiled then fried in lard, eaten schettu (plain, with lemon) or maritatu (with caciocavallo or ricotta).
Where to try it: Pani Ca' Meusa Porta Carbone, Nni Franco u' Vastiddaru, Antica Focacceria San Francesco
Medieval Jewish butchers in Palermo, who by religious rule could not be paid for slaughtering, kept the offal as their reward and resold it as a filling with bread and cheese. After their expulsion under Ferdinand II of Aragon, Palermo's caciottari carried the trade on. The sandwich is sold by meusari, many of them street vendors in markets such as the Vucciria and Ballarò. Antica Focacceria San Francesco says it was founded in 1834 and prepares the sandwich in its two historic versions, schietta and maritata.
Watch out for: Gluten, Sesame, Dairy
Panelle are chickpea-flour fritters and crocchè are potato croquettes; stuffed in a sesame roll they make pane e panelle, a Palermo street sandwich usually served with lemon.
Where to try it: Friggitoria Chiluzzo, Ke Palle Arancine d'Autore, Antica Focacceria San Francesco, Mercato di Ballaro
Italian Wikipedia says chickpeas were widely used in Roman imperial cooking as a chickpea-flour paste, that the first panelle were perhaps baked on stone, and that frying them probably began under French rule, since the Angevins liked fried chickpea dishes. The usual way to eat them is pane e panelle, in a vastedda or mafalda roll with sesame, the bread also used for pani câ meusa. A Palermo food guide recommends Friggitoria Chiluzzo on Piazza della Kalsa for panelle-stuffed rolls, called mafalda.
Watch out for: Gluten, Sesame
Arancina is a breadcrumbed, deep-fried ball of saffron rice, usually filled with ragù, peas and cheese or with ham and béchamel; round in Palermo, more often conical in eastern Sicily.
Where to try it: Ke Palle Arancine d'Autore, Antica Focacceria San Francesco, Gelateria Stancampiano
The origins of the arancina are much debated. Italian Wikipedia notes that the constant presence of saffron led to a supposed early medieval, Arab-era origin, and that the first dictionary entry for the dish is in Giuseppe Biundi's Sicilian dictionary of 1851. In Palermo, Syracuse and Trapani arancine are the food of the feast of Saint Lucy on 13 December, when bread and pasta are not eaten. Ke Palle Arancine d'Autore on Via Maqueda says it was the first arancineria in Palermo and lists more than 20 flavours, among them vegan ones.
Watch out for: Gluten, Dairy, Eggs
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Palermo Pizza & Gelato Cooking Class: enjoy a fun hands-on experience with a professional pizzaiolo, discover Sicilian sfincione and enjoy a gelato show & tasting. Fam...
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Welcome to the top ranked food tour in Italy based on TA reviews! Join a relaxing street food walk around Palermo with a passionate local guide. Take a journey through...
Sfincione is a thick, spongy pizza bread topped with tomato, onion, anchovies, oregano and pieces of caciocavallo, cut into rectangular slices; it is one of Palermo's best known street foods.
Where to try it: Buatta Cucina Popolana, Ke Palle Arancine d'Autore, Osteria Ballaro, Mercato di Ballaro
Italian Wikipedia calls sfincione one of the most symbolic street foods of Palermo and lists it among Italy's traditional agri-food products. It may have been invented by the nuns of the monastery of San Vito, who wanted a feast-day dish different from daily bread, and seems to date from about the 17th century. The name is traced to Latin spongia, Greek spongos or Arabic isfanj, a fried honey fritter. Bagheria makes a Christmas version without tomato, the white sfincione, and hosts the Sfincione Fest each November.
Watch out for: Gluten, Dairy, Fish
Cassata siciliana is a cake of sweetened sheep's-milk ricotta, chocolate drops and sponge, covered in marzipan and candied fruit; it began as a sweet of Sicilian nuns reserved for Easter.
Where to try it: Pasticceria Costa, Antico Caffe Spinnato, Buatta Cucina Popolana
A widespread but unproven opinion traces cassata to Arab rule in Sicily; the word is first documented in the 14th century. The oldest form is a pastry shell filled with sweetened ricotta and baked, the cassata al forno still made around Palermo. Marzipan, said to be an invention of the nuns of the Martorana convent, later replaced the shell, and the Spanish brought chocolate. The glaze and candied fruit decoration was introduced in 1873 by the Palermo pastry chef Salvatore Gulì, according to Italian Wikipedia.
Watch out for: Gluten, Dairy, Eggs, Nuts
The cannolo siciliano is a fried pastry tube filled with sweet ricotta; in Palermo it is decorated with candied orange zest, and it began as a carnival sweet.
Where to try it: Pasticceria Cappello, Antico Caffe Spinnato, Pasticceria Costa, Gelateria Stancampiano
Some food historians place the origin of cannoli in Caltanissetta between 827 and 1091, in the Arab period; Gaetano Basile argues they come from the Palermo and Messina areas and were first a carnival treat. Italian Wikipedia says Palermo's convents and pastry shops, including the tradition of the monastery of Santa Caterina d'Alessandria, shaped the Baroque form of the cannolo and spread it, and that the suppression of religious orders in 1866 and 1867 let recipes leave the cloisters. The pastry is on Italy's list of traditional agri-food products.
Watch out for: Gluten, Dairy, Eggs, Nuts
Pasta con le sarde is bucatini or perciatelli with fresh sardines, wild fennel, anchovies, sultanas, pine nuts and saffron, finished with toasted breadcrumbs; it is most associated with Palermo.
Where to try it: Buatta Cucina Popolana, Antica Focacceria San Francesco
Wikipedia says the dish is most associated with Palermo but found all over Sicily, and Italy lists it among its traditional agri-food products. Italian Wikipedia describes it as seasonal, made from March to September, when fresh sardines are at market and wild fennel can be gathered. The Palermo version is cooked in bianco, without tomato, while a variant around Agrigento uses tomato paste. Pino Correnti argues that the tomato-free recipe published by Giuseppe Pitrè in 1886 is the only authentic one. It is among the foods eaten at the Festino di Santa Rosalia.
Watch out for: Gluten, Fish, Nuts
Caponata is a sweet and sour Sicilian dish of fried aubergine with celery, olives, capers and tomato sauce, served as an antipasto or side dish.
Where to try it: Buatta Cucina Popolana, Antica Focacceria San Francesco, Osteria Ballaro
The origin of the name is uncertain. Italian Wikipedia gives several theories: the sailors' cappone di galera, the cauponae or sailors' taverns, the capponata stuffing used for capons and pheasants in 19th century Sicily, and the capone, a fish served at aristocratic tables with a sweet and sour sauce that poorer cooks replaced with cheap aubergines. By the 18th century it was a single dish eaten with bread. English Wikipedia ties caponata historically to Sicily's Jewish community, and notes that one Palermo version adds octopus.
Watch out for: Celery
Sarde a beccafico are sardines rolled around a filling of breadcrumbs, pine nuts, sultanas and orange juice and baked; the name recalls the stuffed songbirds nobles once ate.
Where to try it: Buatta Cucina Popolana, Antica Focacceria San Francesco, Mercato della Vucciria
The name comes from the beccafichi, small birds that Sicilian nobles hunted and had their monsù cooks pluck, bone and stuff. Peasants made do with sardines, keeping the V-shaped tail like the bird's. In the Palermo version the sardines are boned, rolled around breadcrumbs with garlic, parsley, sultanas, pine nuts and sugar, laid with bay leaves in orange juice and oil, and baked for about 15 minutes. Italian Wikipedia says the dish is often sold in the fry shops of Palermo's markets, such as the Vucciria, and that in the west of the island the filling goes inside one rolled sardine.
Watch out for: Gluten, Fish, Nuts
Granita is a semi-frozen Sicilian dessert of water, sugar and fruit, almond or coffee; with a brioscia col tuppo it is the typical Sicilian breakfast, especially in summer.
Where to try it: Gelateria Stancampiano, Casa Stagnitta
Granita is usually traced to Arab rule in Sicily, which brought sherbet, an iced drink flavoured with fruit juice or rose water. Snow stored in stone niveri on the Peloritani, Nebrodi, Madonie and Etna was used to make its ancestors, and in the 16th century snow mixed with sea salt was found to freeze preparations. English Wikipedia reports that in Palermo and on the west coast granita is at its chunkiest, while in the east it is nearly as smooth as sorbet. Italian Wikipedia says granita with a brioche, the hemispherical yeast bun topped with a ball (tuppu), was and is the typical Sicilian breakfast.
Watch out for: Gluten, Dairy, Eggs, Nuts
Stigghiola is lamb, goat or veal intestine seasoned with parsley and often onion, skewered or wound round a spring onion, grilled and eaten hot with salt and lemon.
Where to try it: Mercato di Ballaro, Mercato della Vucciria
Italian Wikipedia describes stigghiola as a street food prepared and sold by the stigghiularu, listed among Italy's traditional agri-food products. A Palermo food guide writes that it was first eaten out of necessity by Jewish and Muslim minorities in Palermo, hundreds of years ago, and recommends smoked stigghiola at Ballarò market. Gazzetta del Gusto lists a stick of stigghiola with a beer among the evening snacks of the Vucciria.
Watch out for: None
Setteveli is a seven-layer cake of chocolate and hazelnut with a chocolate mousse and a crunchy gianduja base, traditionally served at birthday parties in Palermo.
Where to try it: Pasticceria Cappello, Gelateria Stancampiano
Wikipedia says the torta setteveli was conceived by the master pastry chefs Luigi Biasetto of Padua, Cristian Beduschi of Belluno and Gianluca Mannori of Prato, the Italian team whose cake won the Coupe du Monde de la Pâtisserie in Lyon in 1997. The Setteveli name is a registered brand, so the copies sold in Sicily go by other names. Pasticceria Cappello's site quotes the New York Times calling its seven-layer chocolate and hazelnut cake the city's original, and Lonely Planet calling the shop famous for its settestrati.
Watch out for: Gluten, Dairy, Eggs, Nuts
Babbaluci are small land snails boiled and dressed with garlic and parsley, sucked from the shell as street food; Palermo eats them for the Festino di Santa Rosalia in July.
Where to try it: Mercato di Ballaro, Mercato del Capo
Balarm writes that no Palermitan Festino passes without babbaluci eaten in the street, and that in the old quarters they are sold as street food in the Kalsa, at Ballarò and at the Capo market, where stalls offer them. A Sicilian saying holds that snails to suck and women to kiss never satisfy. The small whitish snail is Theba pisana, common in the provinces of Palermo and Trapani, and it must be purged before cooking because the herbs it eats can be toxic to people. Gaetano Basile wrote a treatise on them in 2006. The Festino runs from 10 to 15 July.
Watch out for: Molluscs
Polpo bollito is boiled octopus sold at Palermo's markets, from large pots at Ballarò and among the seafood of the Vucciria; it is one of the foods eaten at the Festino di Santa Rosalia.
Where to try it: Mercato della Vucciria, Mercato di Ballaro
Italian Wikipedia lists boiled octopus, 'u purpu, among the traditional foods of the Festino di Santa Rosalia, beside babbaluci, pasta con le sarde and sfincione. Palermoviva reports large pots of boiled octopus at Ballarò market, next to boiled potatoes, fresh ricotta and boiled artichokes, and a food guide recommends boiled octopus among the seafood of the Vucciria.
Watch out for: Molluscs
Palermo's signature dishes include Pane ca' meusa, Panelle e Crocche, Arancina, Sfincione, Cassata Siciliana. See our signature dishes chapter for where to eat each.
