For my 500th Yelp review I picked this small restaurant in Ortigia to review, which is an Island, part of Syracusa. This was one of my favorite meals in Sicily. The combination of fresh food and atmosphere made this a memorable meal. I originally was searching for Caseificio Borderi, the famous sandwich shop, although sandwich is an understatement more like masterpieces. The gentleman making the sandwiches is a lovely man and very entertaining. Check out the youtube videos of his creations. I did get a chance to see him but the lines were long and seating was limited so I walked down the street and found L'Isoletta.
The restaurant is right next to the street market which is famous for fresh seafood, produce and other items. It can be noisy with all the vendors shouting in a Sicilian Arabic dialect just the way their ancestors got the attention of customers to buy their fish and produce for centuries. It's very unusual and entertaining.
We got a seat outside the restaurant with a view of the market activity. It was 90 plus degrees outside but comfortable in the dry Sicilian heat.
We ordered a carafe of white wine to start. It did take some time to get our meals but it was nice and relaxing sitting outside and enjoying the house wine. I got the seafood dish with an incredibly fresh assortment of seafood including calamari, shrimp, mussels, scallops, clams, etc. Best seafood dish I ever had and I think it was only 10 euros. We also got an eggplant parmigiana as an appetizer which was excellent. It was just an awesome meal, we must have been there almost 2 hours but enjoyed every minute of it. Even though I was full and starting to sweat from the heat I had to finish off that dish. I wasn't going to waste any delicious morsel. If you ever read the Sicilian detective series books Inspector Montalbano by Andrea Camilleri this would be one of the meals the character Montalbano raves about. read more