The Old Town and the Sea: Waterfront Palermo, By Night

The story of Palermo is one that is inextricably tied to the sea. Thanks to its location on the Mediterranean, the city has been a vital port since ancient Greek times. Palermo’s seaside perch has also meant that the Sicilian capital has long been a crossroads of cultures and civilizations – not to mention ingredients and culinary traditions. Ironically, due to the fortifications built to protect the city and later because of the damaging effects of World War II, Palermo’s waterfront over the centuries became increasingly harder to access. Thankfully that has changed in recent years, allowing the city to rediscover and again experience the history and vitality of its old port – which is exactly what we’ll do on this evening food tour.

Working our way through some of Palermo’s most charming seaside neighborhoods, we’ll explore the city’s enduring connection to the sea – as well as taste the food and meet the people that tell the old port area’s fascinating story. Our evening will start in the Castellammare neighborhood, home to La Cala – Palermo’s ancient port – which for millennia has been host to sailors, traders, and merchants, including a silversmith hand-hammering religious icons in his tiny workshop, which we’ll visit. To get started, though, we’ll duck into a century-old cafe that remains unchanged since it first opened, for a glass of aromatic Sicilian vermouth. Fortified by our aperitivo, we’ll make our way towards the waterfront and a bustling neighborhood institution for pezzo, classic to-go snacks made from a brioche dough that’s baked with a dizzying array of savory fillings and toppings. Stepping into the port itself, our next stop will bring us face-to-face with one of Palermo’s still working fishermen, who will give our group a chance to step into his colorful wooden boat and tell us about his work and how local fishing traditions are being kept alive. We’ll then continue through the backstreets to a street food specialist for a coppo – a paper cone – filled with pannelle, crispy fritters made from chickpea flour, and other fried bites.

Continuing on our way, we’ll join the locals at a family-run trattoria for a plate of caciocavallo all’argentiera, pasta with sardines and fried calamari, a beloved specialty of the neighborhood. Before the evening is over, we’ll get another taste of the sea at a neighborhood restaurant helmed by a young woman chef. Here we’ll sit down for a meal of freshly caught seafood and fish, served both fried and – more extravagantly – crudo, accompanied by some delicious Sicilian wines. But we’ll be sure to save some room for our last stop, a fifth-generation dessert maker in business since 1860, where we’ll get a taste of a true Palermo original, the Giardiniera, a three-layer gelato cake that evokes the colors of the Italian flag and created to celebrate the late 19th-century unification of Italy. It’s a fitting finish to a walk in an area where history and tradition is evoked at every stop along the way.