October 2023

This is a fine formal restaurant in the Vallegrande Nature Resort hotel, about 15 minutes south of the town of Cefalu on Sicily’s North Coast. The food was varied and beautifully prepared, the staff were charming and courteous (and spoke fluent English), and our experience was enough to take us back for a second time on this 12-day stay outside Cefalu. It was the best formal-style restaurant we found.

Booking lunch was easy through an Italian app called “Fork” (beware, Fork booked us at two other places that proved to be closed on the day of our reservation). It’s a pleasant drive along the coastal highway and then up through a secondary road to quite high elevation. The hotel is classy but undersubscribed at this time of year: there were grounds, well-maintained gardens, a couple of bars, swimming pool, small pleasant accommodation. The main building with the restaurant is modern and beautiful.

Each time we practically had the restaurant to ourselves and sat outside. Server was a polite cheerful young man with good knowledge of the menu and the wines who expressed reasonable enthusiastic opinions about menu choices. Each time there was a “chef’s welcome” amuse bouche, this time a cream goat cheese-based stack of raw salmon with guanciale. Our starters were corn tacos with goat cheese and sausage and Irish beef tartare with crab. Both tasty and nicely plated, the taco a bit difficult to eat.

Mains were a pumpkin cream spaghetti that was perfectly seasoned and octopus ragu pasta, salty and sour with a tomato base.

We drank a carricante and catarrato blend that was fragrant and refreshing. It’s been our experience that any of the native Sicilian white grapes and grape blends are wonderful fresh white wines. Sicilian reds are usually nero amaro and a lot more ordinary.

The price last time was about €100, this time about €130 (C$150 and 170). Good value for the food and experience.

I discover that the company owning the hotel and restaurant (Geocharme) has a group of hotels and luxury villas in Sicily. If they are run and staffed anything like this place they would be world-class.

Food 9.3 service 9.4 ambience 9.4 value 9.2 peace and quiet 9.6.