"The setting was perfect: a beautiful traditional garden, enclosed by thick stone walls, with old citrus trees growing in the middle. The owner and the waitress were very kind and we had a setting for a perfect dinner. And it was perfect, except for the food. Obviously, they wanted to make a step forward from a typical island trattoria serving typical island dishes. While they can cook (there were no mistakes in execution), they can’t combine. Most of the dishes we had were a combo of elements that sounded good on the menu, were mostly ok, but they failed to combine. The “fake pizza” with octopus was the first. Nicely prepared octopus, potato purée, tomatoes. This would be a “peasant” dish, so they added a dough to make a “pizza”. It simply didn’t belong there. Squid with mashed beans was even worse in this regard. A combination of squid and beans might sound strange but we had it before in Southern Italy and it works. But the almond foam doesn’t and neither does super bitter coffee sponge in cubes on the top of it. The sponge repeated in the main dish, but was made with squid ink instead. Again, we had a good main element, accompanied with lemon jam, overcooked asparagus,… The “plain” dishes were much better red lentils with grilled onions, red berries, and pecirino; typical ravioli pantesci in tomato sauce; suckling pig fillet. The dessert, the baccio we tried in all the restaurants we visited on the island, was another example of the wrong focus. The plating was eye catching, but the traditional dessert got to the bottom of our list compared to what we had elsewhere. It was a pleasant evening with food to be forgotten quickly and a bill that was by far the highest in the whole week."
