Are you on vacation in Trapani and eager to discover the best restaurants to enjoy delicious dishes? Well, then you’ve come to the right article. But before listing the best restaurants, let’s get to know a bit about Trapani’s cuisine.
Although it has much in common with Sicilian cuisine, Trapani’s cuisine is more influenced by other cuisines, especially Maghrebian, compared to other areas of Sicily. This results in a significant difference, with a massive use of fish instead of meat. The two main and well-known typical dishes of the area are couscous and pasta cu’ l’agghia.
As typical appetizers of Trapani’s cuisine, it’s necessary to mention all the tuna products, such as tuna bottarga, salted red tuna, fresh lattume, and tuna lung. As for the first courses, there are busiate, a sort of homemade macaroni twisted with a buso twig, traditionally served with a local fresh tomato sauce called pizzutello, and accompanied by fried eggplants or zucchini.
Another typical dish of Trapani’s cuisine is gnocculi, a homemade pasta hollowed out by hand, served like busiate; frascatula, which are balls of semolina dough cooked in steam, served with fish broth or broccoli, chickpea, and vegetable soups. A delightful specialty is lobster broth pasta: hand-broken spaghetti cooked in a broth made with tomato concentrate, parsley, garlic, and onion, to which lobster is added to boil before the pasta.
But what is the best restaurant in Trapani?
Continuing with typical Trapani cuisine, we mention Tonno ammuttunatu, a pasta with red tuna ragout stuffed with garlic and mint; and pasta with scorpionfish ragout and that with eel ragout from Salina. Other particular delicacies are main courses with tuna, including sweet and sour tuna, fresh tuna meatballs, and ghiotta marinara.
If you are not a fan of fish, we suggest meat dishes such as rolls stuffed with grated pecorino cheese and breadcrumbs, falsomagro (a braciola filled with minced meat, cheese, eggs, and parsley), and addina cunzata, a delicious boiled hen dish flavored with mint leaves, garlic, and parsley.
So, where is it recommended to eat in Trapani? Here are some restaurants where you can enjoy exquisite dishes. The first recommendation is the restaurant Al Vicoletto, an unusual and well-decorated place; it offers excellent fish dishes, and customer reviews suggest that the food is of excellent quality.
Another valid option is the small restaurant Macrì, located in a small square near the port. Here, the limited size of the place is highly appreciated, making the restaurant even more relaxing and quiet. The dishes are of excellent local cuisine, simple yet authentic in flavors and preparation, sincere and without too much fuss.
Finally, we want to talk about a nice place, Capricci in tavola, which is not a restaurant but rather a deli-butcher shop offering top-quality gourmet sandwiches. To better understand the quality of their food, we can tell you that on TripAdvisor, with 800 reviews, this place has the highest rating of 5.