Ed eats

Sciacca
12, St Augustine Street,
Paceville
Tel: 2133 5474

Food: 9/10
Service: 9/10
Ambience: 8/10
Value: 8/10
Overall: 8.5/10

Loving food causes pleasure and pain in almost equal measure.I suppose this is true of anypursuit that deserves passion and dedication.

I had come seeking innovation but instead found a more traditional kitchen that shines

I see men around me reduced to whimpering little boys as they watch a foreign football team lose a match to another.

While I know as much about football as a vanilla seed knows about the crème brûlée recipe, I have my own equivalent hopes and despairs. And high hopes, more than desperate times, can lead to desperate measures.

Upon a mere rumour of excellent food, I would gladly travel into a dangerous jungle, braving unknown dangers, fuelled by the hinted possibility of a hitherto untasted delicacy.

Luckily, most of the restaurants I visit are blessed with a perfectly good road that leads to them. The rest are in Malta.

A name that keeps recurring when discussing good food isSciacca. I hear about the restaurant often and every time I think to myself, ‘Paceville’.

The restaurant is situated right next to cinemas and hotels and other attractions that lead herds of revellers on drunken parades around town during the summer.

I do not think I could last long inside a restaurant with so much fun being had outside without getting up half way through my meal and joining them.

Now that the season is muttering its last shreds of small-talk, yawning and stretching and preparing to roll over and sleep, I thought it would be safe for me to have a go at Sciacca myself. The praise I heard would make my trip through the jungle worth my while.

I took the easy way out and parked inside a pay car-park that is conveniently close by. I paused outside the restaurant for a while, taking in the décor.

Designed with a hefty dose of confidence, the wood-panelled interior is laid bare by two storeys of glass wall.

The upstairs area is illuminated by a cluster of what looks like De Lucchi’s work for Artemide, inverted white lollipops that give a gentle glow while showing that more care and attention was given to the place than many other places I have been to.

So far, so neat.

We are greeted at the door by the man I presume to be the maître d’ and who is evidently carrying years of training and experience.

He was one of the shining stars of the evening and I have unreserved praise for his manners, his skills and his unfailing attention to detail.

Tables are large enough to handle cutlery, crockery, a multitude of dishes and the necessary bits and pieces that I take out of my pockets when seated, yet just narrow enough to keep conversation levels reasonable.

I would have foregone the blue glow above the bar but I am being both subjective and annoyingly picky, so I will just end the description by saying the place is warm, welcoming, and aesthetically pleasing.

The menu is, as seems to be the wont of the decade, laden with adjectives and descriptions that do nothing to conceal the factthat there is nothing particularly innovative.

Perhaps it was the anticipation that repeated mention of the place had caused, maybe it was the lovely interior design, and it could be the ‘arte nel cibo’ description that made me expect a more inventive approach to food.

I hunted through the menu for something novel that could really define the place and give it that unexpected dish worth going for but none was forthcoming.

Just in time, our maître d’ came to the rescue and I put down the menu to try and eke out something worthwhile from the manin the know. He needed no prompting.

At my mention of oysters, he suggested an antipasto of oysters and langoustine that had both been delivered that very morning and that could all be served raw. In milliseconds he had my very enthusiastic nod of approval.

Following that, he ventured, perhaps we would like fresh fish. In fact, he presumed, we would be wanting a tennuta (black bream) that had been speared in the midriff that very morning.

Now the black bream is not a fish I encounter very often and is up at the top of my favourite aquatic species (followed closely by mermaid’s tail in sashimi form) and he showed us the fish in question, its bulging, shining, black eyes reflecting my eager expression like an impressionist portrait. That settled that.

Back at table, he took our orders for wine and glided away.

Our wine, a bottle of Biancodicaselle, was served by a young lady who wasn’t as pleased with us as our man had been. She made a perfunctory job of serving the wine and scooted off, leaving the cool, white wine behind to slowly warm up.

Eyes like a hawk, our maître d’ descended upon the table with an ice-bucket even before I had time to register disappointment at the way the bottle had been left to battle the environment unprotected.

Our antipasto was served in a large, metal tray, with langoustine simply sliced in half to expose their sumptuous flesh and oysters served as oysters are served – simply. All of this was propped up by a thick layer of flaked ice to maintain freshness even while we ate.

At this point the chef popped by to see that all was as expected and offer fresh chilli to go with the langoustine. Once again, they had read my mind. A narrow tray was promptly delivered to the table, with freshly cut chilli in olive oil and an almond sorbet, garnishedwith an emptied vanilla-pod, to complement the oysters.

The kitchen had taken nature’s finest and served it as nature intended it and for this restraint they are to be commended.

Just as restrained was the sorbet, hardly sweetened and with vanilla and almond creating a delicately poised palate.

We waited a while longer than I expected for the main course to be served. When it made it to our table, this was wheeled to us on a trolley and provided our maître d’ to show off his knowledge of fish anatomy.

He made quick work of separating the flesh from the bone, careful to dig deep into the fish’s jowls and make sure we did not lose the tasty cheek flesh.

When I was half way through the fish, the chef returned to ask whether all was to our liking. Very honestly, very truthfully, I told him that it was one of the best fish I’ve tasted in a long time.

He shrugged this off with a modest, “the black bream is a fish that is hard to mess up”. I don’t know whether the fish itself or the chef deserves most merit but it was indeed a memorable moment.

At the chef’s suggestion, I finished the meal with fresh pineapple that had been thinly sliced and arranged in a floral pattern with a dollop of cream cheese on top that had chilli, black pepper, star anise, mint and a host of other flavours present as no more than a delicate hint, a distant cacophony of scents that hovered above the pineapple and never really threatened to dive straight in.

It is not the first time I have encountered pineapple and cream cheese but I have never quite had it so expertly served.

At €100 the meal had been fairly priced. The service was almost top notch, the place welcoming, and the food quality excellent.

I had come seeking innovation but instead found a more traditional kitchen that shines thanks to the mastery of its preparation.

Sciacca will fast become a favourite, one that will be well worth cutting through the thick underbrush of the Paceville jungle to get to.

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