Italy

Last year MsRev and I did a long trip thru Eastern Europe and received great help from our fellow LTH'rs. In a week, we are going on a European cruise then visiting a few weeks in Italy. We will be in Rome(3 nights), Florence(4 nights), Positano(3 nights) and Sicily(5 nights). We are driving around Sicily with stopovers tentatively planned in Taormina, Siracusa, Agrigento, and Palermo. I notice there's a current thread for Rome. Any and all suggestions are welcome. Considering the state of the dollar, I doubt any 3 star Michelin restaurants will be visited, however everything else is fair game.

As an aside, during the cruise we have a 2 night stay in Istanbul. 1 of those nights we will dine off the ship in town. I'd appreciate any recommendations. The cruise line is Crystal. They are supposedly known for serving the best food. 1 of their restaurants has a menu by Nobu, and another by Pierro Selvaggio of Valentino fame. Does anyone have feedback about these ships?

It's been about a decade since I was last in Palermo, but based on recent explorations of websites Sant'Andrea seems to have held up well over the years. Here's a thread that discusses and will be useful for other Sicilian recs:

http://www.chowhound.com/topics/328009

RevrendAndy wrote:As an aside, during the cruise we have a 2 night stay in Istanbul. 1 of those nights we will dine off the ship in town. I'd appreciate any recommendations.

Ditto! We'll be doing a similar cruise later in the fall. We have overnights in Istanbul and Ephesus/Kedusi. I'm particularly interested in places that are reasonably wheelchair accessible (occupant can walk some), though that is not a deal-breaker.

Check out the post from Rome, but here's a few recommendations from my Sicily trip last year.

In Palermo I had one of the best pizzas of my life in the Piazza Bellini (under the facade of the Martonrana).


Any foodie worth his Diner Club card must check out the markets in Palermo. The markets in Rome seem like a trip to Jewel after seeing the madness that is a Sicilian market.




Day trips from Palermo include the beach town of Modello, to da Calogero (via Torre d Mondello) where the must try is the spaghetti con ricci and other sea urchin specialties. I had some baby octopus too.




Another treat was Cefalu, at the lo Scoglio Ubriaco (the druken stone), via Ortolani, for more great seafood overloking the sea.




But a must do from Palermo over all other choices is in Eriche - la Pasticcerra di Maria Grammatico, where the cannoli and marzipan rule over all others on the planet. I had a simple lunch of caprese salad, aranchini and cannoli with some marzipan scraps served afterwards, and it was the best meal I had in Italy. The road to Eriche, which is a medieval town on top of a mountain may be harrowing for some but worth it.





In Agrigento at the Trattoria dei Templi I had the Spaghetti con Neri di Seppia - black spaghetti made from a type of cuttlefish called an inkfish. Watch your clothes.

I had excellent meals in Siracusa at a place call Ottocento (800), and in Taormina at Azurre, but I was with a small group, and got group menu choices.

(sorry only one URL)
http://www.trattoriadeitempli.com/

Wow, Paul, those are some amazing pictures. That salmon! The octopus! The peaches!

My friend Becky, with whom some LTH'ers recently shared a meal at Turquoise, chose Turkish food because she's headed to Istanbul next Spring.

To help her research, I scanned an article on Istanbul from the May '07 Bon Appetit (travel issue), because they have awful online archives. I scanned it at high resolution, so it's a 60+MB download (PDF), but then, it has pretty pictures.

I also would love some Naples recommendations (need Lunch only, I think).

How about pizza? Some of the great pizzerie are not open for lunch (the ovens are not yet hot enough), but one that is, if you're in the area of Spaccanapoli is:

DI MATTEO
Via dei Tribunali, 94

At least, when we were there, they also had their version of a slice, if you're in a hurry. And you might be, because just a couple of blocks away at Piazza S. Domenico Maggiore, is Scaturchio where you'll find the gold standard in sfogliatelle.

Altho if it's a nice day and you're by the bay there's nothing much better than an al fresco spaghetti alle vongole in a number of restaurants overlooking the bay. (My favorite has unfortunately closed.)

One other thought is a restaurant called, I believe, La Tavernetta (?) which I've never been to but which the NYTimes, based on a recent article I haven't saved, apparently thinks is the best value euro-for-euro in Naples and is open only for lunch. You'll have to do some searching to find more info about this one, but it sounded like it'd be worth the effort.

One further bit of advice, don't get suckered into going to Brandi's which may have served good pizza in Queen Margherita's day, but is now fairly tourist-ridden.

leek, in Naples, if you're on the lungomare, near the Hotel Miramare, I can recommend Da Ettore a couple blocks away at via Santa Lucia 56. Near the Porta Capuana I like Da Gennarino (via Capuana alla Maddalena). Port'Alba near Piazza Dante does good fish...and if you're up the hill in Posillipo, I like Da Ciciotto, off via Marechiaro. I'm pretty sure they're all open for lunch.

OK, I need a wine shop that is open on Sundays (yes, we'll be in Naples on Sunday, when most of these great places are closed)

Enoteca Partenopea just outside of town in Fuorigrotta is about the biggest wine store I can think of in Napoli. But in the centro you should find plenty of places to buy wine, especially along the Riviera di Chiaia. Stop at Masaniello for lunch, then some wine shopping.

One of the few good restaurants/pizzerie we found open on Sunday evenings was Lombardi a Santa Chiara (via B Croce 59) in the Centro Storico. Excellent pizzas when we were there, and also some good seafood specialties.

Lunch is the more important meal of the day on Sundays, so you might find some of the restaurants along the Bay open at noon, particularly if it's a nice day, and particularly if it's the last Sunday of the month when the Fiera Antiquaria Napoletana is in operation. A good place to pick up some fancy (and not so fancy) figures for your Nativity scenes (that is, if you haven't found anything--unlikely--on your walk down via San Gregorio Armeno).

In Istanbul we ate at Refik, which was phenomenal. You pick dishes out from either a refrigerated case or a hot steam table with stews (or pick out fresh fish/raw meat for them to cook). We went at lunch during the week, and it gradually filled up with guys (no women) most of whom seemed to be regulars. Everything we had was very tasty, and of the dishes we had duplicated elsewhere, the examples at Refik were best.

Refik
SofyalI Sok. 10-12

In Naples, on Sunday, nearly everything was closed. We had unremarkable pizza at Brandi, though the eggplant appetizer was quite tasty. It had the distinction of being open, historic, and in a good location for where we were at the time (we were footsore, after having walked up to the top of the town to see the museums and castles up there, and had gotten very lost after boarding a bus we thought would take us back down, but which instead headed in the opposite direction, out into the suburbs!). Most of the folks there were not tourists, as far as we could tell, but local families having a nice lunch out.

We didn't end up getting any wine after all, but had a nice day anyway.

Brandi
Salita Sant'Anna di Palazzo 1, Naples

Closed on Sunday. Wow, Naples is changing. It sounds like they've decided to join the EU.