Island of Marettimo Sicilian Sea(food) Passione

Two out of three nights on the magical island of Marettimo (western Sicily coast), we ate at Il Veliero and only because one night we arrived too late to nab a table.

As you walk towards the swinging door of this small seaside trattoria with leaping blue dolphins painted on the side, you already suspect you’ve found the right place for seafood: a young man with black goatee and bright green eyes sits near the door preparing bait for a fishing trip. That’s Alberto, like his father (at the burners inside), a fisherman since he could toddle. Alberto and his cousin Ignazio take hours to intricately weave (literally) the bait for the n’cuonsa: using two hundred fishhooks they’ve painstakingly knotted to fishing line, the two young men pierce each piece of bait and then hang all the pieces on a huge wooden wheel. Heading offshore on their boat, they’ll drop this “fish-bait wreath” into the sea early the next morning, hoping that the hundreds of pieces of dangling fish will do their job.

Inside the door, that morning’s fresh fish catch – n’cuonsa haul – lies on ice, ready for the diners to point out their choices to the wait staff. Elderly Giuseppe is at the grill in the kitchen for lunches and dinners – and then home for a brief nap before he and Alberto head out to fish just as night gives up to day’s first rays.

After Alina (Alberto’s wife) seats you with a smile and passes you the menu, you KNOW you’re in for “seafood paradiso’, should you have any lingering doubts: the menu is handwritten on a piece of paper. Tomorrow’s menu cannot be the same as today’s: who knows what Alberto and Giuseppe will have on board when their fishing boat pulls into port in the morning?

On our first night there, we started at the antipasto table loaded with dishes of Sicilian goodness, the stuffed mussels immediately catching Pino’s eye. On a salad-sized plate, you can help yourself to tastes of the Sicilian pepper dish, la peperonata, eggplant parmesan, panelle, (those tasty chickpea “little panels”), olive salad with diced fresh vegetables, grilled eggplant, tuna carpaccio – and more. I tried tastes of most – but skipped the un-tempting marinated tuna heart.

Pino relished a mound of steamed mussels while I chose a tasty pasta creation of swordfish, figs and ginger. Pino skips pasta dishes when he knows that top seafood can follow his usual (when in Sicily ) mussels: mixed seafood followed for him.

Desserts were eye-catching but who had room?

We were back the next night and Giuseppe turned around to give us a wave from the kitchen. Too late to get a table, though. and even all those on the deck along the water were already full.. We passed Alberto “embroidering” his bait near the door as we left. Five hours of work the previous day for nothing: n’cuonsa had caught on a buoy and been torn to shreds.

“All these hours of minute fish-hook ’needlework’, Alberto – why?” He stops with a piece of slippery fish in one wet hand, hook in another and smiles as he shrugs, “solo per la passione.” (“Only for passion.”)

And passione for the sea and its goodness reigns at Il Veliero. You can see it in the kitchen where Giuseppe runs the show at the burners, sometimes wife at his side..and assistant Anna.

The young wait staff shares in the pride, la passione. Meet them here:

We were back to Il Veliero for our third and final Marettimo night, arriving there so early that we were the first seated! After all, what better way to leave a magical island than by savoring it?

Read about why we love Marettimo
Read about another favorite Sicilian spot here
Read about more of the good tastes of Sicily
Read more on Marettimo
Read about Castelluzzo, also in western Sicily
Read about good eating near Castelluzzo in San Vito Lo Capo.
Read more about tempting Sicilian flavors
Read more on Palermo good-eating
Read about another Sicilian treat with Arab roots
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Read more on our Sicily adventures (and a recipe)
Read how Sicily is all about food