Palermo: an ancient city rich in history, culture and … culinary delights! Mediterranean cuisine is very diverse and each city has its own distinctive foods and wine. What they have in common is the use of authentic local ingredients and dishes with centuries-long traditions. If you’ve decided to visit Palermo but you don’t know what to eat, we’re here to help. Here is our list of Palermo’s local specialties and where to taste them. Get ready to jump into a delicious paradise!
STREET FOOD: SICILIAN EXCELLENCE
Palermo cuisine’s best specialties can be found in its simple street food, the true heart of Sicilian gastronomy.
Here are the specialties of Palermo that you don’t want to miss:
- panelle (chickpea flour fritters): usually used as a filling for delicious stuffed sandwiches, or they are paired with cazzilli or crocché (fried potato croquettes) for a tasty fried food assortment.
- l’arancinA (ends in “A”, as opposed to the Catania area’s arancinO): probably Sicily’s most famous street food, it is literally a ball of rice with a filling of meat sauce and peas, that is breaded and fried. There are different variations, from the white version with butter and prosciutto, to the gourmet version with pistachios and pancetta, to sweet versions as well!
- pane con la milza:a powerhouse food consisting of a sesame bun filled with boiled and pan-fried spleen and lung, then finished off with a sprinkling of caciocavallo cheese. It’s definitely for strong stomachs!
- Sfincione: soft dough similar to thick crust pizza, topped with tomato, onion and anchovies
You can find street food in all corners of the city, but we recommend trying it at Palermo’s traditional, historical street markets, such as Ballarò, Vucciria and Capo.
TRADITIONAL DISHES
Other traditional dishes and home cooking specialties that reign supreme on true Palermo tables:
- Pasta con le sarde is pasta with a unique sauce: fresh sardines, wild fennel, raisins and pine nuts! A must.
- pasta con le acciughe e mollica: a poorer version of pasta con le sarde, made simply with anchovies, toasted bread crumbs, and tomato sauce.
- Anelletti al forno: anelletti is Palermo’s most loved pasta shape. In this dish the little rings are baked in the oven with meat sauce and mozzarella cheese.
- Sarde a beccafico: sardine roulades stuffed with wild fennel, raisins and pine nuts. When they are cooked, they look like beccafichi, small birds with a long tail, which give the dish its name.
- Involtini alla palermitana: veal slices that are rolled up and stuffed with caciocavallo cheese, raisins and pine nuts. They are then breaded and baked in the oven, or cooked on the grill with bay leaves and onion.
DESSERTS
And now it’s time for Palermo’s magnificent pastries! They can be found all over Sicily, and the important ones to try at least once during your stay in Palermo are:
- Cannolo: a crunchy shell filled with fresh sheep’s milk ricotta, and embellished with chocolate chips, candied fruit and chopped pistachios
- Cassata siciliana: this dessert made with sponge cake, ricotta, marzipan, and candied fruit is a taste explosion!
- Frutta di Martorana: it looks just like real fruit, but it’s not! Made entirely from almond flour, water and sugar, these are actually sweets, often used as decoration.
- Granita and Brioches: for a breakfast of champions, forget cappuccino and pastries. Delicious granita, or water ice, paired with a brioche bun, will enchant you and you’ll never go back!
- Iris: another breakfast specialty. It’s a small donut filled with ricotta or chocolate cream, which was first prepared by the Palermo pastry chef Antonio Lo Verso to celebrate the premiere of Mascagni’s opera Iris.
- Sfincia di San Giuseppe: this pastry is made at Father’s Day. It’s a fritter cooked in lard and filled with ricotta cream, chocolate chips, chopped pistachios, and candied cherries and orange peel.
All traditional dishes can be tasted in the hundreds of local restaurants, bakeries and pastry shops. If you’re planning a trip to Palermo, we recommend choosing one of our exclusive villas in northern Sicily, like Villa Scireor Villa Demetra!
