17/05/2026: Sicily in Milan, a wonderful surprise!
16/05/2026: It's a Catanian enclave in Milan.
In Catania, it's common to find a bar/diner/fast food restaurant and pastry shop all in one place. Where you can have a granita for breakfast, an arancino, or baked pasta, or caponata, or something else, for lunch, dinner, or simply because you're in the mood.
Here, everything is excellent.
The flavors and aromas are almost all in the right place.
The little bit that isn't exactly as it should be isn't their fault. Take the bread, for example: the mafalda has exactly the same shape and size as the one you'd eat in Catania. The sesame seeds are just right. Unfortunately, the durum wheat semolina, which is only found in Catania, is missing: so the inside is less firm, less fragrant, white instead of yellow, and lighter. It would still be good... if only you didn't expect something that isn't there, because it can't be.
And the arancino's "shell" is a little less rigid and firm than it should be. But then you try the one with fried eggplant, and you find pieces of salted ricotta inside... and you're reconciled with (your) world!
These are subtleties. The caponata is exactly ours. The almond granita is creamy, without visible chunks (but you can taste it in your mouth: oh yes!), at the right temperature, a little solid, a little runny; with just the right amount of sugar to be neither bland nor cloying: a little masterpiece.
The staff is polite, kind, patient: something that should never be taken for granted.
Then, when they bring you the coffee with the almond granita inside, you finally feel understood, and even a little at home.
And you find yourself humming "ciuri ciuri"...
A gentleman came in, and with all that goodness, he ordered a coffee.
What a mess he'd missed...
It was impossible not to compare him to someone who uses a Formula One car to go to the newspaper.
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