To make the tiniest scratch in Palermo’s gastronomic surface, you’re going to need at least a week. Nevermind the fact that most people devote less than 24 hours. They are missing everything. And don’t go planning a million day trips (however a half-day in Monreale, just outside the city, is a must). Stay put, get into the groove, and really live Palermo. And do yourself a favor and book a tour with Linda Sarris! 

Of course, you can’t do or eat everything on a single trip, but here is my advice for a crash course in Palermo’s cuisine.

Pastries, Sweets, and Coffee: 

• It’s impossible to beat the Convento di Santa Caterina for sweets. The convent housed cloistered nuns from 1311 to 2014. Since 2017, the cloister has been taken over by a group of professional baking women who make the most spectacular cassate (ricotta cakes with candied fruit) and fill freshly made cannoli shells with ricotta before studding them with ground pistachios. GO TO THERE. But get there right when it opens or prepare to queue.
• Around the corner, Casa Stagnitta is another excellent spot for breakfast, including pastries and especially granita in the summer months, plus excellent coffee any time of day. They don't usually have granita in the winter, but it never hurts to ask!
• Cappadonia Gelati and Rorò do nice gelato.
• I love ricotta in all its forms, and Sicily is the place to have them: as stuffing in ravioli, in its salted and grateable version, and especially as the sweetened filling of desserts. When I visit Palermo, I usually stay near Mazzara (Via Generale Magliocco 19) or Bar Vabres (Via Michele Cipolla83/85), both of which do delectable ricotta-filled cornetti (as well as every other imaginable pasty), but I have been known to travel across town to Oscar on Via Migliaccio for my cassata. Costa is also quite awesome and I wouldn’t turn down a cannolo from Alba. In the Capo Market, Le Angeliche Dolci al Volo does nice pastries from across the island.
• When visiting Monreale with public transport, take the bus from Via Calatafimi so you can work in a detour to two nearby pastry shops, Cappello and Massaro. Their setteveli, seven-layer cakes, are insane.

Restaurants and Wine/Cocktail Bars 

• Trattoria Corona is a good, slightly contemporary place for fish. 
• Osteria Alivàru serves soulful, honest, seasonal food in the Kalsa. The caponata is legendary.
• Quattro Mani: Since opening in the Kalsa in 2017, this restaurant has served well-heeled locals and visitors the traditional dishes and flavors of Palermo, made special by super fresh fish and produce. 
• Piccolo Napoli: This family-run establishment serves nice fish dishes in Borgo Vecchio. Booking is essential on the weekends, as palermitani flock for polpo bollito (boiled octopus), spaghetti con i ricci (with sea urchin roe), and involtini di spatola (filets of scabbard fish rolled around breadcrumbs, pine nuts and currants). Save room for a few buccellati (the original fig newton!) and cassata brought in from Pasticceria Oscar.
• Bottega Monteleone, Vinoveritas (Via Sammartino 29), and Dal Barone are fun places to drink Sicilian vino. Bottega Corsallo has an excellent international wine selection. Bar Botanico serves up fresh herbal cocktails and sweaty dance parties. The brewpub Ballarak has a great selection of Italian craft beers. CiCala has the most incredibile selection of traditional Marsala and a spectacular wine list otherwise.
• FUD: The place for Sicilian pub food, i.e. horse and donkey burgers. Great wine list and beer, too.

Street Food

Visit the Capo and Ballarò markets: While the Vucciria market is the most famous one in Palermo, it's pretty touristy. I prefer the Capo and Ballarò markets, though in recent years Capo has become increasingly frequented, too. They are large, rambling affairs where vendors sell produce, meat, and fish. Butcher shops display the skinned heads of recently slaughtered animals in the manner of North African and Middle Eastern bazaars; fish are stiff with rigor; produce is ripe and (mainly) local. You’ll also find stalls selling some of Palermo’s best street food–here’s the best of what to eat there: 

• Eat whatever’s in that basket: In both the Capo and Ballarò markets, as well as on random street corners and in alleys, you will see men with wicker baskets. These baskets are draped with fabric to keep their contents warm-ish and relatively fly-free. Walk up to the basket man and order frittola, a sandwich made with the meat bits (cartlidge, fat and tendons, too) that he’ll pluck from his container and stuff into a roll. If you are watching your carbs, you can get the chunks of meat in a paper cone instead of sandwich form. There is just one rule: don’t look too closely at the frittolaru’s fingernails. Nothing good can come from that.
• Sfincione and arancine: Forno Storico Pietro Marino on Via Albergheria in Ballarò is a master of carbs. Try their sfincione (flatbreads topped with tomato sauce fortified with salted anchovies), pane cunzato, and arancine (rice croquettes). 
• Stigghiola: Stigghiole are lamb or calf intestines that are charcoal-grilled on the street at night. Starting at around 5pm, the stigghiolaru will set up shop, dropping a slab of fat over the smoldering charcoal to make smoke, which will attract customers. He will then prepare the innards, placing them on wooden chopping blocks to skewer them before they go on the grill. He will then chop the cooked stigghiole on the same chopping block in what is just one of the many wonderful examples of cross-contamination that Palermo’s street food scene has to offer. Stigghiola stalls are everywhere.
• Pane ca’ meusa: These sliced sesame seed rolls are filled with slices of spleen that have been cooked in lard. Even if you are squeamish, please give this delicious sandwich a chance. Pane ca’ meusa is served all over town, but the place that does it best is aptly named Pani ca’ Meusa di Porta Carbone on Via Cala. You can grab a sandwich and a beer and sit at the tables on the sidewalk, which look across the street to the port and beyond to Monte Pellegrino. I also love Nino U Ballerino and ‘Nni Franco U Vastiddaru!
• Pane con panelle: This is another classic street food that you can find absolutely everywhere. I am partial to the stall in Piazza Ballarò, where the vendors (a husband, wife, and son team) drop panelle (chickpea fritters) into a bubbling cauldron of oil, to order. They stuff each sesame seeded roll with 5 to 6 of the piping hot panelle and might even stuff a few crocchè (potato croquettes) in there with them. Pani ca’ Meusa di Porta Carbone, Nino U Ballerino, and Nni Franco U Vastiddaru (as mentioned above) are all good for panelle, too. 
• Street fish: Not far from Teatro Politeama lies Borgo Vecchio, one of the liveliest parts of central Palermo. Here there is commerce day and night, and the zone is constantly abuzz with activity—howling street vendors touting their goods, kids playing in the street (a bit unsettling), and whole families whipping by on scooters (minus the muffler). I wouldn't say the hygienic standards of the street fish vendors are comforting, but it's fun to have a look and if your G.I. system can handle it, order a couple of grilled fish.
• San Francesco sucks: Not the Saint. I don't really have an opinion on him. I'm talking about Antica Focacceria di San Francesco. This place is as boring and awful as it is famous. I won’t bore you with all the reasons why AFSF sucks, but suffice it to say that you can eat better everywhere else. Ignore the hype and support the other spots actually committed to quality food.

If you enjoyed this guide and plan to use it, please consider supporting my work and purchase my book Food of the Italian Islands!