After visiting the ancient landmarks and cerulean swim-spots of Ortega Island, you may wonder what is left to experience when on holiday in Syracuse, Sicily. Walking along the shores of the turquoise-coloured ocean, the scent of sea salt lingers in the air. You will undoubtedly be enticed into diving into Syracuse’s local seafood. The place you’ll want to go to satiate this appetizing temptation is the Michelin star Ristorante Don Camillo.

Ristorante Don Camillo focuses on the roots of its cuisine. It develops new culinary customs within traditional Sicilian recipes and uses ingredients produced locally. Since its opening in 1985, the head chef and founder of the restaurant, Giovanni Guarneri, has been fascinated with the history of cooking, and creates every new dish with an echo of its past traditions. He describes how he always remembers that the act of cooking was not born with him, but something he learnt through others and experimentation. His own journey as a chef is therefore written into Don Camillo’s cuisine as it combines culinary tradition with a personal touch.

Don Camillo is situated on Ortega Island, 10-minutes by foot from the walking bridge that takes you onto the island in Syracuse. Ortega Island is a maze of charismatic alleyways, each one unique from another, with Grecian balconies overlooking the streets below. Dotted all over the island are the historic landmarks, including remains of the Temple of Apollo, Castello Maniace, Fontane di Diane and the Duomo. Hidden down one of the alleys feeding off from the beautiful Fontane di Diane, is Ristorante Don Camillo.

The restaurant looks like any other from the outside set into a beige wall on the street. Yet upon entering, it is like being transported into the wine cellar of a Sicilian castle. Stacked up to the height of the ceiling are racks of wine bottles from local Sicilian vineyards. Start your experience here at Don Camillo’s bar with its signature Aperol Spritz: a blend of orange with an undertone of clove, making this drink simultaneously refreshing and warming.

Walking through the stone-wall archway, the dining room is simple with an intimate number of tables, and the décor is kept minimal, but tidy. It is as though time stops in the restaurant as the rumble of the road outside is barely audible. Even when the restaurant fills up around 9pm, the serene atmosphere of the restaurant is undisturbed.

In Don Camillo, there is a selection of tasting menus, including a 7-course seafood menu. Opening this menu’s culinary experience is a scoop of tomato ice cream with vodka jelly and celery. This starter is a palette-stimulating form of a Bloody Mary cocktail, with a sweeter taste of tomato combined with a kick of vodka and crunch of celery. After awakening your tastebuds, an antipasto of smoking king prawns with lobster mayonnaise is served. As the course is presented to you, the waiter slowly lifts off a metal cover over the dish, letting steam billow out from underneath to reveal the prawns that are cooked to melt in your mouth. With the sweet lobster mayonnaise and salty hints of seaweed, the flavours of this dish all dissolve as one harmonized balance of flavour.

The primi piatti is spaghetti frutti di mare. This is a mix of sea urchin and shrimp in a lightly creamy, olive oil sauce with spaghetti. The shrimp effortlessly breaks down in your mouth with the pasta, and the powerful saltiness of the sea urchin, the earthy undertones of the Sicilian olive oil, and the creaminess of the sauce are well-balanced. The sprinkling of parsley on top makes this dish so fresh it is unlike other heavier, cream-based pastas, but light and irresistible.

First of the two secondi piatti dishes is the cuttlefish in tomato, mascarpone and tuna sauce with a dusting of green pepper. The fleshiness of the cuttlefish offers a meatier texture to the previous courses, and the flavours of this plate are unusual and vibrant. Next, the tuna steak cooked in the local Sicilian olive oil with oven-roasted green and red pepper sauces is served. The tuna steak is left slightly undercooked making it extremely tender to eat. The sweetness of the red pepper sauce and slight bitterness of the green pepper sauce give the tuna a powerful hit of flavour, and the wonderful earthiness of the Sicilian olive oil lingers on your taste buds. These dishes are paired exceptionally well with the 2018 Terre Vere Etna Bianco wine, as the dryness of the wine supplements but does not dominate any of the flavours of the dishes.

Finally, the desert ends this menu with a memorable, celebratory flourish. Based on the flavours of the traditional Sicilian cassata, this desert includes an almond pastry sitting in orange syrup, with a ricotta cheesecake filling and pistachio cream on top with a few pieces of sugared orange. The nuttiness of the almond and pistachio, the sweetness of the orange and the creaminess of the ricotta blend into a delicious desert. Even though you would already be full from the dishes before, you will want to eat every last crumb.

What completes a wonderful evening in Don Camillo is the amicable staff. They are friendly and welcoming and take a moment to get to know you more personally as they serve you your meal. Giovanni also helps the waiters and speaks to the guests, making the experience of the restaurant intimate and personal. They guarantee that you will feel completely at peace in the restaurant, regardless of whether you can speak Italian or not.

Booking a reservation at Don Camillo should undoubtedly be on your itinerary when travelling to Syracuse. It completes your experience with a taste of Syracuse’s finest flavours and the company of the kind Sicilian people. The restaurant exposes the luxury of Ortega Island tucked away in its maze of charismatic streets.