Late on Sunday night in Palermo (the night before a holiday), the first couple of restaurants we tried to go to were closed. Along the way, we passed Appassionato which was definitely open and looked pretty cute from the outside. So, after strike two, we decided just to go to Appassionato since we knew it was open.
Everything was good enough to fill our hungry bellies, but nothing was great. Not somewhere we'd normally choose to eat, but totally okay when nothing else was open.
They sent out a little amuse bouche to start with which were like mini pizzas made on a very flat bread. We enjoyed those a lot.
For an appetizer we ordered the mushrooms with fried polenta. The fried polenta was served in large fry-like cubes and looked like pieces of bread. I'd never had polenta served like that before, and I'm not sure I liked it. The mushrooms were good.
I picked a standard pasta dish (pasta with tomato sauce) which was a generous portion. It was nothing special, but filling.
The food at Appassionato reminded me of food that I could make myself at home. It was good, but it wasn't really "restaurant quality" good. read more