Castelluzzo: Splendid Sea, Sicilian Goodness

In his late twenties, smiling Giuseppe welcomes guests at the family restaurant/hotel Oasi da Paolo in Castelluzzo (western Sicily, near San Vito Lo Capo) and takes food orders with his papa’ Paolo. His younger brother Antonino (“he was the mischievous one,” smiles mamma Francesca) reigns in the kitchen, backed by three young assistants. Lots of laughs come out of that kitchen: Antonino’s serious about his cooking… but he hasn’t changed.

Our arrival in Castelluzzo

Playful Antonino, a hard-worker in the kitchen, with his staff

Giuseppe (with his wife Margherita)

Paolo takes orders in the family restaurant

I remember him as a little boy, playing with his brother Giuseppe on the veranda while mamma Francesca cooked in the kitchen and papa’ Paolo waited tables (and Danilo was a later family addition). Pino and I had stopped here for lunch after morning swims in the stunning Mediterranean waters a few miles down the road.

Danilo – now part of the staff, too – with nonna Serafina and mamma Francesca

Before lunch, morning swims in the splendid sea near Castelluzzo

We’ve come back many times since for Francesca’s pesto alla trapanase (in the Trapani area, almonds replace pinenuts in the pesto, made with a touch of fresh tomato) – Antonino makes it now – and the couscous di pesce alla sanvitese. Francesca’s hand is still in the couscous (both of them!), literallly: on the restaurant terrace in the afternoons, her hands work a huge bowl of the semola, refining it for the couscous, a task called “n’ncocciatura” in sicliano (literally, “putting together the tiny ceramic pieces”).

Francesca’s hands still in the couscous preparation

Oasi da Paolo guests join in the n’ncucciatura

Pino always chooses the couscous at Oasi da Paolo

Before Francesca, Paolo’s parents turned out the goodness, cooking local specialties in a small trattoria along the road out front which leads from Trapani to San Vito. Serafina – almost 83 – reminisces wistfully about their start: “my husband Giuseppe worked the quarries and I cleaned houses but he wanted us to work together so we started cooking together.” She added, “He took care of the wood fires, cooking sausages, grilling meats, firing up the pizza oven and making the pizzas.” Serafina made the pastas, fish dishes and the couscous: n’ncocciatura was her task. Son Paolo later joined her in the kitchen and then his wife Francesca after they married.

Nonno Giuseppe died over twenty-five years ago but no one can stop his Serafina: she’s not in the kitchen any longer but she handles the drying of all the silverware. And then she wanders table-to-table chatting with guests. When we talked, she gave me a demonstration of how she used to roll out her homemade busiate.

Signora Serafina shows me how she worked the busiate by hand

Busiate are a headliner on the pasta menu here: served with a tasty sauce of tomatoes, fresh tuna fish, ricotta, pinenuts and crushed almonds, too.
Have a look at the goodness (and come one day to taste it!):

Homemade busiate with generous chunck of tuna and pinenuts, almonds, ricotta.

And that’s not all that tempts here: if you stay a couple days in the hotel they now have behind the ristorante, be sure to book la mezza-pensione, as we did. That means lunch or dinner each day. It would take a stay of a few days to try just the highlights of the seafood – and not only – here at the Oasi da Paolo.

Pistacchio encrusted tuna with sweet/sour red onions and sheep’s milk ricotta

Seafood salad

Mediterraean whitefish and baby tomatoes with mint

Mixed seafood fry

Pasta with clams and baby shrimp

Tasty seafood chowder

Pizzas, too, from the wood-burning oven

And that’s one reason we keep returning.
And of course, the splendid Mediterranean coast right down the road was the first draw to Castelluzzo.
And still is.