A Cucchiara
Light and elegance permeate this stone-walled restaurant, where the open kitchen provides theater and owner Peppe Giamboi takes the stage as a gustatory storyteller, roaming from table to table. The menu is constantly changing, but you'll find excellent work with vegetables (a rarity in Sicily) and really lovely preparations of local cod. In addition to a sublime rendition of stocco in ghiotto (cod in a Messinese sauce of tomatoes, olives, capers, and celery), it also might show up prepared under tender sheets of lardo (salt-cured pork fat) in a light orange-lemon sauce with fried leeks.
