Here’s Where to Find the Best Sicilian Food, According to This Philly Author

Irwin’s / Photograph by Isa Zapata

How do you write a delicious book — a novel that makes readers hungry as they turn pages on their couch? You have to start with eating all of the food while you write.

About five years ago I set out to write the most delicious novel I had ever created: The Sicilian Inheritance. It would be a Sicilian adventure, a murder mystery, and a romp following a Philadelphia chef tracing her roots back to Sicily. (Even though this book is set mainly in Sicily, it is also the most Philly book I have ever written.) It would also make readers salivate over plates of tuna with capers, sea urchin linguine, and honey-covered figs.

I had big plans to travel back to Sicily, to the small village of Caltabellotta (where my family is from) as well as other towns that dot the island, and find inspiration, which meant eating as much food as possible. And then … a certain virus shut the world down, delaying my culinary expedition. So I started my Sicilian adventure from memory, from the many trips I have taken to Sicily over the years, and from the grainy pictures I took in dark trattorias. But it wasn’t enough. I needed to eat in order to write this book.

Jo Piazza eating a cannoli in the name of research. / Photograph by Andrea Cipriani Mecchi

I’m gonna say something right up front, and I hope no one is offended. Sicilian food is Italian, but Italian food is NOT Sicilian. The term “Italian food” is used to describe a broad category that encompasses 20 regions that have their own distinct cuisines, and Sicilian food is as far away from red sauce and meatballs as Mother Theresa is from Madonna.

It’s a melting pot of Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, and North African cuisines (owing to the many groups who have conquered the island over the centuries). It’s fresh fish and vegetables simmered in couscous, tinged gold with saffron.

In Sicily, you will rarely find a pizza unless a place caters to tourists or long-haul truckers. You will get handwritten menus every day with whatever ingredients are newly harvested and available for a good price. When the restaurant runs out you are shit out of luck, but the nonna back in the kitchen will make you something else equally delicious. She might not tell you what is in it, but you will love it and want seconds and thirds. It’s almost impossible to find that stateside.

But there are Sicilian standouts in Philly if you know where to look. Here are some classics I researched for my novel, and where to find them.

Where to Get an Aperol Spritz

The “Once Bitter, Twice Shy” spritz at Cry Baby Pasta in Queen Village / Photograph courtesy of Cry Baby Pasta / Photograph courtesy of Cry Baby Pasta

Aperol spritzes are ubiquitous on the streets of Palermo, even more so now since their marketing explosion a few years ago. You can’t take two steps in the Sicilian capital without being offered a roadie for your stroll. And while I’m not a Hemingway-style writer who believes that inspiration is found in the bottom of a whiskey bottle, I think a single cocktail can offer the right amount of creativity to conquer writer’s block.

So I spent many happy hours polishing up my book’s boozy scenes (of which there are many) with top-notch spritzes. Gran Caffe L’Aquila is the winner for a straight-up old-school spritz. Other favorites include Cry Baby Pasta’s effervescent Once Bitten, Twice Shy made with Contratto instead of Aperol and prosecco, and Fiorella for their Alpino Spritz made with rosemary and amaro.

Where to Get a Classic Sicilian Meal

Irwin’s crudo / Photograph by Isa Zapata

For an entire Sicilian meal close to home I had two options: cross the river to Zeppoli in Collingswood or go to the roof of the Bok Building to Irwin’s. I called up Michael Vincent Ferreri of Irwin’s and asked him if I was missing anything on the Sicilian scene in Philly. Having formerly worked in the kitchen at Zeppoli and now running a Sicilian restaurant of his own, he assured me I wasn’t.

Irwin’s mezze — their small dishes of crudo, and swordfish with fermented chili — have taken me straight back to the beach towns lining the coast outside of Palermo, namely Scopello and Sciacca. The fish is always fresh and always simple in the best of ways. “You go to Sicily and you get this intensely high-quality seafood prepared as simply as possible,” Ferreri said. “Crudos covered in a lot of shit are not my fucking thing. I take the simplistic approach that is the same as in the Sicilian trattorias.”

While Ferreri is delivering a modern twist on Sicilian cuisine, Zeppoli over in South Jersey is as old-school as it gets. Chef and owner Joey Baldino has traveled to Sicily and has extensive experience with the cuisine, and it shows through his menu. The pesto trapanese, fusilli generously coated in an almond-pistachio pesto, rivals the ones that I have had in the actual town of Trapani; the rabbit stewed with oregano, rosemary and tomatoes is as savory as the dishes I encountered in Madonie mountain towns like Castelvetrano; and the Sicilian fisherman stew made with couscous, saffron, and everything a Mediterranean fisherman caught in his net smells and tastes like a bowl from the Egadi island of Marettimo.

Where to Get Cannoli

Isgro’s Pastries cannoli / Photograph courtesy of Isgro’s Pastries

I’ve eaten more than a hundred cannoli in the past year. My waistline can attest to it. And Isgro’s Pastries, with their cannoli based on a Sicilian family recipe, came out on top. The shell is crisp and bubbly without being too hard and brittle. They fill the cannoli the Sicilian way: with a spoon when the customer walks through the door. Sicilians do not consider cannoli cannoli unless it is filled moments before it is eaten. This is the case even in Sicilian gas stations, many of which boast the best cannoli on the island. If you go to a restaurant or bakery and they have pre-filled cannoli in their cases, walk right out the door. They’re clearly a front for something else.

The cover of The Sicilian Inheritance coming out April 2nd. / Courtesy of Jo Piazza

Jo Piazza is the bestselling author and award-winning journalist behind the upcoming novel The Sicilian Inheritance, which comes out April 2nd.

In addition to writing the novel The Sicilian Inheritance, Jo is releasing a true crime podcast by the same name where she returns to Sicily to solve her real life great-great-grandmother’s murder. In conjunction with both projects she has collaborated with the Italian Market’s own Cardenas Oil & Vinegar Taproom on a Sicilian Inheritance olive oil with oil imported by Cardenas from Sicily.