What to eat in Catania
Catania eats pasta alla Norma with fried aubergine and salted ricotta, arancino (masculine here, and often cone-shaped like the volcano) and granita with a brioche for breakfast. The rest is decided by the Pescheria, the fish market that opens at dawn behind the cathedral square.
Catania sits between an active volcano and the sea, and eats precisely that. From the slopes of Etna come Bronte pistachios, prickly pears, cherries, volcanic wine and the citrus of the plain; from the port come anchovies, sardines, swordfish, tuna and the small fish no northern restaurant would bother listing. The volcanic soil is the technical reason behind most of it: it holds water and returns minerals, and it gives vegetables a concentration you taste immediately in the aubergines and tomatoes.
The second defining trait is frying. Catania fries more than almost any other Sicilian city, through a network of rosticcerie and fry shops working from seven in the morning until late at night: arancini, cipolline, cartocciate, crispelle, siciliane. It is eaten standing with a paper napkin, costs two to three euro a piece, and replaces lunch for a large share of the city. Nobody calls it street food except in translated menus.
Then there is breakfast, which is a serious matter here. From April to October, and for many people all year, breakfast is granita with a brioche col tuppo, a soft sweet roll with a small topknot that you tear off and dunk. Catanese granita is not shaved ice: it is water, sugar and fruit or nut paste churned in a machine, with no coarse crystals. Ordering one at eight in the morning with a warm brioche beside it is about as local as behaviour gets.
The dishes of Catania
Pasta alla Norma
Lightly cooked tomato, aubergine fried in slices or cubes, basil, and a snowfall of grated salted ricotta added in the bowl rather than in the pan, where it would melt and disappear. The aubergine is salted first to draw out water and then deep-fried in plenty of oil: roasting it is a different dish. The name is traced to the Catanese playwright Nino Martoglio, who is said to have compared the plate to Norma, the opera by Vincenzo Bellini, also from Catania.
Arancino
In Catania the word is masculine, arancino, and the shape is often a cone, which locals read as a nod to the volcano; in Palermo it is feminine, arancina, and round. The classic filling is meat ragu with peas and caciocavallo, though the fry shops also turn out bechamel and ham, spinach, and pistachio versions. In 2016 the Accademia della Crusca ruled that neither name is wrong, which settled nothing at all.
Cipollina
A puff pastry parcel filled with stewed onion, tomato, cooked ham and cheese, glazed with egg and eaten straight from the oven. It is the most Catanese item in any rosticceria and is barely found elsewhere in Sicily. Its shelf-mates are the cartocciata (rolled pastry, same filling), the bolognese (a round bun with meat sauce inside, unrelated to Bologna) and the siciliana, stuffed with fresh tuma cheese and anchovy.
Granita and brioche col tuppo
Almond, black mulberry, lemon, pistachio and coffee with cream are the flavours that carry the counter, and regulars order almond and coffee together, split down the middle of one glass. The brioche takes its name from the tuppo, a bun of gathered hair: you pull off the topknot, dunk it, and use the rest as a spoon. At Savia on Via Etnea, opposite Villa Bellini since 1897, the Saturday morning queue is long even in March.
Fish from the Pescheria
Anchovies, sardines, mackerel, swordfish and tuna, but above all masculini da magghia, anchovies caught by the gills in the mesh of the net rather than on a hook, so they arrive whole and are cooked the same day. They are rolled with breadcrumbs and parsley, or simply floured and fried. In the Pescheria behind the cathedral square the stalls work until two, and people choose fish by looking at the eye and lifting the gill, exactly as the queue of local shoppers does.
Crispelle
Leavened batter stretched by hand into a strip and dropped into hot oil, wrapped either around a salted anchovy or around fresh ricotta; the sweet version encloses rice cooked in milk and is finished with honey. They come out puffed and irregular, get eaten too hot, and are counted individually at the till. They are the city's winter fried snack, though most fry shops keep them on all year.
Caponata catanese
Fried aubergine, celery, onion, olives and capers in a sweet-sour base of vinegar and sugar reduced in the pan; the Catania version usually adds peppers, which Palermo leaves out. It should be eaten at room temperature and ideally the following day, once the sweet-sour edge has settled. It appears as a starter, as a side, or on its own with bread, and in summer it is in half the fridges in the city.
Grilled horse meat
In the braceria of Via Plebiscito and in the Nesima and San Giovanni Galermo districts, horse meat is grilled over charcoal in full view of the street: thin steaks, sausage, rolled involtini, served in bread. It is an everyday tradition rather than a curiosity, and on summer evenings you can see the smoke from a distance. You order by weight, sit at a plastic table, and drink the house wine.
Bronte pistachio
It grows on solidified lava at around seven hundred metres on the north-western flank of Etna and is harvested once every two years, in odd-numbered years, in September; the flowers are stripped in the even year so the tree can rest. It is DOP, deep green, and in Catania it goes everywhere: pasta sauces, granita, ice cream, arancino fillings, cannoli cream. Watch the price: genuine Bronte pistachio costs several times the Iranian or Californian kind, and is not inside a two-euro product.
Scacciata
A bread dough folded over a filling and baked, either as a half-moon or in a tray, with fresh tuma cheese, salted anchovies, olives, and sometimes broccoli or sausage; the plainest version is just tuma and black pepper. It is made for Christmas Eve, when every family has its own filling, and bakeries in the centre sell it by the slab through December. It keeps well cold but should be reheated.
Local products
The flagship product is Bronte green pistachio DOP, followed by Etna prickly pear DOP and the blood oranges of Sicily IGP (Tarocco, Moro, Sanguinello) which ripen on the Catania plain between December and April and owe their colour to the temperature swing between volcano and sea. Etna also gives cherries with DOP status, strawberries from Maletto, coastal lemons, and the tomatoes and aubergines that end up in a Norma.
Among cheeses the reference points are salted sheep's ricotta, which carries every Catanese pasta dish, fresh tuma for the scacciata, and provola from the Nebrodi mountains. On wine, Etna DOC has rewritten the island's reputation in twenty years: Nerello Mascalese and Nerello Cappuccio for reds, Carricante for whites, with the contrade of Randazzo, Passopisciaro and Milo now quoted the way Burgundians quote climats. Add honey from Zafferana Etnea, oil from nocellara etnea olives, and almond nougat from around Belpasso.
Sweets and pastries
Catania's sweet calendar turns around Sant'Agata, the city's patron, celebrated from 3 to 5 February with the largest religious procession on the island. For it, bakers make minne di Sant'Agata (small white domes of sponge and ricotta under sugar glaze, topped with a candied cherry, referring to the saint's martyrdom) and olivette di Sant'Agata, green marzipan olives. They are in the windows from mid-January.
The rest of the year belongs to sheep's ricotta and almonds: cannoli filled at the moment of ordering and not before, cassata with its green marzipan band and candied fruit, fried cassatelle, buccellato at Christmas, and zeppole for St Joseph's day on 19 March. The historic pastry shops sit on Via Etnea (Savia, open since 1897, and Spinella opposite Villa Bellini, Prestipino towards the cathedral) while Nonna Vincenza on Piazza San Placido is where almond pastries get bought to take away. Belpasso, just outside the city, makes the small nougat bars sold all over Sicily.
Where to try them
The Pescheria, a piscaria, opens shortly after dawn behind Piazza Duomo, under the arch beside the Amenano fountain, where the river re-emerges from the lava and falls in a sheet. It runs until about two, Monday to Saturday, and around the fish stalls there are butchers, vegetables, cheese, spices and two or three osterie cooking what is sold ten metres away. It is loud and wet, and it should be seen early.
The other market is the fera 'o luni on Piazza Carlo Alberto: it began as a Monday market and now trades every day except Sunday, supplying the city with fruit, vegetables and household goods. For fried food, stay on Via Etnea and its side streets, where the rosticcerie work continuously; for horse meat, go to Via Plebiscito or Nesima in the evening.
To sit down: Osteria Antica Marina is inside the Pescheria and cooks the fish from the stalls; Me Cumpari Turiddu on Piazza Turi Ferro serves Sicilian cooking with selected producers and also sells cheese and preserves. The trattorie on and around Via Coppola hold the line on Norma. Outside the centre, San Giovanni Li Cuti, Ognina and Aci Trezza serve fish in sight of black lava rocks.
When to go
From 3 to 5 February the city stops for Sant'Agata: those are the days of minne and olivette, and also the days when moving through the centre is difficult and every place is full. Blood oranges cover the winter, December to April, and Etna cherries arrive in June.
Summer is the season of granita, fish and very late dinners: in July and August people eat after half past nine, because earlier is too hot. September and October are the best months overall: the pistachio harvest at Bronte in odd-numbered years, with a festival at the end of September, the grape harvest on Etna, prickly pears coming in, and a sea still warm enough to swim in. December brings the scacciata for Christmas Eve and buccellato in the pastry windows.
Food tours and classes here
Frequently asked questions
Is it arancino or arancina?
In Catania and eastern Sicily it is arancino, masculine; in Palermo and the west, arancina, feminine. In 2016 the Accademia della Crusca explained that both forms are legitimate, since they descend from different dialect routes. The practical difference: Catania's is often cone-shaped, Palermo's is round.
What is pasta alla Norma and why is it called that?
Pasta with tomato, fried aubergine, basil and grated salted ricotta. The name is credited to the Catanese playwright Nino Martoglio, who reportedly invoked Norma (the opera by Vincenzo Bellini, born in Catania) as shorthand for something perfectly done. The salted ricotta goes on in the bowl, never in the pan.
Do people really eat granita for breakfast?
Yes, and in the warm months it is the standard breakfast, roughly April to October. You order a granita (almond, coffee, mulberry, lemon, pistachio) with a brioche col tuppo alongside, and use the brioche to scoop it. Plenty of locals keep the habit through winter as well.
How much does it cost to eat in Catania?
Less than most of Italy. A piece from a rosticceria runs two to three euro, granita with a brioche about four, and a trattoria dinner comes to 25-35 euro a head with wine. Seafood restaurants cost more, and whole fish is priced by weight, so ask for the price per kilo and the weight of your fish before it is cooked.