26-03-2013
Zen garden with snails on the beach, a dish created with Modica’s barbaini at Il Consiglio ("Advice") in Donnalucata (Ragusa), +39.0932.938062, the stage of a convincing cuisine mixing fish and meat, and the love’s nest of the Sicilian chef Antonio Cicero and Roberta Corradin, food writer from Piedmont and our early contributor
This is a seaside village where, with nonchalance, Arab reminiscence, Baroque exaggeration and Neoclassic sobriety are all mixed together, on a strip of sand (Pindaro would still describe it as “savage and fascinating”), with a sea that already seems African and a sunset which turns into “the colour of the wine” (Sciascia dixit). We’re in Sicily, of course. At Donnalucata, in that Ragusashire those who have crossed the Alps (or the Mediterranean Sea or Atlantic Ocean) in order to recover the rhythms, flavours and colours of the Grand Tour, enjoy so much.
In a labyrinth made of alleys (which make navigators go mad), in a minuscule square (which includes an elegant 19th century palace in the background) there’s the tiny salle à manger of Il Consiglio di Sicilia (the Sciascia-inspired quotation is intentionally wrong) whereRoberta Corradin and Antonio Cicerolive and reign. She’s “erratic”, he’s “precise as the mechanism of a very fine watch” (these are Roberta’s definitions). She’s a writer, globetrotter, wine and food expert. He’s a chef, a chef and once again a chef. She’s a Northerner from the continent, he’s an island-Southerner. Some may think they play a good match. They do indeed.
The brunch newspaper
Antonio Cicero and Roberta Corradin
Reviews, recommendations and trends from Italy, signed by all the authors of Identità Golose
by