> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.readbeaufoy.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # The Best Restaurant in Palermo Was Our Kitchen - URL: https://www.readbeaufoy.com/the-best-restaurant-in-palermo-was-our-kitchen/ - Published: 2026-10-04T21:19:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-04T21:19:00.000Z - Description: The house was ridiculous. The roads were lawless. The tomatoes were magnificent. Palermo and I are still deciding how we feel about each other. - Author: Stuart Beaufoy Our house in Sicily had five bedrooms, six bathrooms and six levels. It also had an infinity pool overlooking Palermo, four terraces, a partially blocked-off Godfather-style office with an antique wooden desk and library, and a suspicious section of covered floor on the ground level that suggested there might be more to discover if we looked hard enough. We didn’t. There are some things you don’t investigate in Sicily. This would be one of those things. The place was enormous. A maze. It needed some love. Rather like Palermo, as it turned out. ## Palermo needs some love My first impression of Palermo wasn’t great. Run down. Messy. Litter everywhere. Barren in places. My opinion improved over the next few days, then deteriorated again. Palermo knows it’s beautiful. That might be part of the problem. It has the confidence of someone who was devastatingly good-looking at 25 and has spent the next 30 years assuming that would be enough. The bones are all there. Beautiful buildings. Great markets. The sea. The mountains. The food. The weather. And then there’s rubbish everywhere. Dog shit everywhere. Bits that look like nobody has cared for them in years. Palermo and Mondello were particularly bad for it. You find yourself looking around thinking: *This could be fucking spectacular.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/10/aa/10aac3d5-b66a-4570-a3cb-3357ea28fd7a/content/images/2026/10/Street-Dining-1-1.jpg) ## First, you have to survive the roads I’ve been driving for more than 30 years. Before Sicily, I’d never hit another vehicle. Within two days I’d hit five. To be clear, I didn’t drive head-on into five Fiats. These were Sicilian collisions. A nudge here. A mirror rubbing against another mirror there. A little bit of shrubbery trimmed with the side of the rental car. The roads were narrow, full of holes and apparently governed by a set of rules nobody had thought necessary to share with us. Initially, I hesitated. This was a mistake. By day three I’d worked it out. **To indicate is to show weakness.** You must not do this. You see a gap, you go. Someone else sees the same gap, they also go. What happens next is apparently between the two of you and God. And nobody seems particularly bothered. A mirror touches another mirror? Carry on. Someone pulls out in front of you? Of course they did. By the third day I’d embraced it. I’m not particularly proud of this. But I was getting around much faster. ## We went shopping There were ten of us. One of my best mates, DK from Australia, his wife Jo, their daughters Lola and Evie, Lola’s boyfriend Connor, my great mate Dave from home, and the four of us. DK and I have been friends for years. Like me, he’s spent his life in hospitality. He has pubs and bars in Australia, loves food, loves cooking and loves having people around a table. We hadn’t all been together for a couple of years. It was hot. None of us had been before. That was enough. Our first proper food expedition was Mercato Ballarò. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/10/aa/10aac3d5-b66a-4570-a3cb-3357ea28fd7a/content/images/2026/10/Markets-Bar-1-1.jpg) The girls attracted plenty of attention from the stallholders and consequently plenty of freebies. Panelle. Octopus.. Bits and pieces handed over counters. We bought a couple of beautiful red snapper to cook over coals back at the house. Lemon-infused salt for margaritas. And tomatoes. Jesus, the tomatoes. Everywhere. Juicy, ripe. tomatoes that actually tasted like something. A surprisingly novel concept for those living in Scotland. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/10/aa/10aac3d5-b66a-4570-a3cb-3357ea28fd7a/content/images/2026/10/Vongole-1.jpg) Mercato Ballarò. We went to La Vucciria as well. Marsala. Cheese. More wandering. More eating. This was the sort of tourism I could get behind. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/10/aa/10aac3d5-b66a-4570-a3cb-3357ea28fd7a/content/images/2026/10/Azzurra-Bar-1.jpg) ## DK ate the spleen Sicilian street food has a reputation. Some of it deserves it. Arancinetta Burro was an excellent mouthful. Arancini was less reliable. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/10/aa/10aac3d5-b66a-4570-a3cb-3357ea28fd7a/content/images/2026/10/Arancina-Poster-1-1.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/10/aa/10aac3d5-b66a-4570-a3cb-3357ea28fd7a/content/images/2026/10/The-wife-3-1.jpg) Six tried. Two good. Make of that what you will. We tried six. Two were good. That’s a 33% success rate. I’m not sure I’d build a national reputation around those numbers. Then there was spleen, lung and cheese. DK tried it. Nobody else felt the need. The war is over I felt completely comfortable with my decision. We left the cannoli until the final day. That was a mistake. It was excellent. ## We found a restaurant we liked Al Gabbiano was on the water and became our restaurant. We had a great meal there with all ten of us. Lots of food. Lots of drinks. Lots of stories. We ordered tuna tataki, which felt like a questionable decision in Sicily. It was exceptional. Possibly one of the best things I ate on the trip. Would I fly back to Sicily specifically for it? No. But I’d order it again tomorrow. The staff also worked us out very quickly. We were ripe for the picking. And perfectly happy to be picked. Why bring one drink option to the table when you can bring three? We’d take them all. Would we like another bottle? Yes. Some more food? Obviously. They upsold. We bit. Everybody was happy. Sometimes I don’t want to be protected from myself. Just bring it over. ## We were only going shopping DK, Dave and I needed to pop out one day to get some shopping. Simple job. We stopped at Al Gabbiano for a beer. One beer. Then another appeared. Then some calamari. Some oysters. Some langoustines. More beer. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/10/aa/10aac3d5-b66a-4570-a3cb-3357ea28fd7a/content/images/2026/10/The-Three-of-us-1.jpg) At some point, the shopping element of the expedition became increasingly theoretical. We did eventually return. I can’t remember whether we had everything we were sent out for. I remember the oysters. ## The best meals weren’t in restaurants The best meals we had in Sicily were at home. DK and I cooked. A lot. The red snapper from Ballarò went over the coals. We did veal. We did porterhouse. Chicken wings for a snack. Pork ribs, well, just because. Coils of salsiccia. Sausages, basically. Potato salads with pistachios. Pumpkin and feta salads. Whatever looked good at the markets or the local supermercato came home with us. Some days we ate inside. Some days outside. Long table. Wine. Cold beers. No rush. The girls would sometimes make dessert. A few of us would end up in the pool. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/10/aa/10aac3d5-b66a-4570-a3cb-3357ea28fd7a/content/images/2026/10/Snapper-1.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/10/aa/10aac3d5-b66a-4570-a3cb-3357ea28fd7a/content/images/2026/10/Table-Dinner-1.jpg) There was no service. Because we were the service. Nobody was trying to turn the table. Nobody was explaining the concept. We ate when the food was ready. Drank when we wanted. Cooked what we fancied. Done at our speed, the way we like it done. Turns out that’s quite difficult to beat. ## We went looking for a beach We’d been told about a fantastic beach at Terrasini. So off we went to beach ourselves. For whatever reason, it didn’t happen. Instead we ended up at Spiaggia di San Cataldo. No great plan. No sand. So much better. Maybe it was a sign. This sort of thing seems to happen to us quite a lot. The place you’re supposed to go doesn’t work out. You end up somewhere else. It’s better. It wasn’t the plan. ## Sicily grew on me The people were friendly. They’re Italian. Once you accept that, you learn to love the country. I do, on the whole. Sicily specifically? I’m not there yet. There is so much to like. And so much that makes you want to grab the place by the shoulders and say: *For fuck’s sake, look at what you’ve got.* The litter, dog shit and neglect genuinely bothered me. When somewhere has that much natural and architectural beauty, the mess becomes more irritating, not less. Palermo isn’t ugly. Far from it. It just looks like nobody has told it how good it could be. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/10/aa/10aac3d5-b66a-4570-a3cb-3357ea28fd7a/content/images/2026/10/Coco-Pool-1.jpg) ## But we didn’t really go for Palermo And that’s probably the point. We weren’t there because Palermo was on anybody’s bucket list. It was hot. None of us had been. Most importantly, we were together. And for that, Palermo was great. Would I go back? With those people? Tomorrow. On my own? I’d need a good reason. Go for a weekend with a few mates. Walk through the markets. Eat some cannoli. Drink cold beer. Don’t worry too much about getting run over. And don’t indicate. But if I went back with DK, Jo, Dave, Kathryn and the rest of them, I wouldn’t spend weeks researching restaurants. I’d find another ridiculous house. I’d go to Ballarò. Buy whatever looked good. Bring it home. Light the coals. Open the wine. Get everyone around the table. Because for all the food we ate in Palermo, the best restaurant we found wasn’t really a restaurant at all. It was our kitchen. And we’d booked the table for the week.