Palermo was our first port of call in a wine visit to Sicily and our first night in the city yielded one of my favorite dinners at a casual neighborhood restaurant not far from the airport. Vitina Cucina & Pizza in the Cinisi area of Palermo specializes in seafood and pizza. Standouts for me included the grilled squid and shrimp and pistachio pasta while dessert, a ricotta cassatella was fantastic.

After a flight from Rome, dinner at Vitina was a great way to start our trip in Sicily. Our main reason for being in Palermo was to visit the Cusumano winery and as such, we stayed nearby in the Magaggiari Hotel Resort. Normally, I’d prefer to stay in town but this worked well for us.

Vitina is just a short (less than five minutes) walk from the hotel and was recommended to us by a local contact. The restaurant is casual – it reminds me of our local coffeeshops in Singapore and Malaysia. The restaurant filled with local diners – always a good sign – as the evening progressed reflecting the fact that we were out of the tourist zone.

Since Sicily is blessed with fresh produce and seafood, we stuck with these offerings on Vitina’s menu, starting with a fritto misto – mixed fried prawns, squid and scallops – and bruschetta with tomatoes (aka Trapani Bruschetta).

Sometimes all you need is a good bottle of white and nice fried fresh seafood. We decided to try one of Cusumano’s white wines, which was on Vitina’s wine list, – the Angimbe 2013. This was a nice crisp medium bodied white with citrus hints that went well with our food.

We followed up the starters with pasta and pizza, a grilled squid, sardine fishballs and grilled vegetables. The grilled squid was the noted on the menu as the catch of the day and we were lucky to grab this before it sold out. It was outstanding but generally the other food was very good.

We had three types of pizza – a Quattro Formaggio (four cheeses which were mozzarella, gorgonzola, a smoked cheese and emmenthal), a Rianella (tomato, mozzarella, pecorino, garlic, anchovies and oregano oil) and one that I think was called the Waimea (tomato base, mozzarella, spicy salami, peppers, hot chilli pepper, and arugula).

We also had three pastas of which one was geared toward a friend who’s allergic to shell fish and nuts but is okay with sea urchin. So there was one spaghetti with just sea urchin but the pasta that includes clams (vongole) is better. The other pasta was with shrimp, cherry tomatoes, chopped pistachios, garlic cream and zucchini. This was very good.

We ended our meal with a ricotta cassatella – excellent – after years of trying Sicilian desserts in Italian restaurants outside of Sicily, you just can’t beat the real thing.

I’m sure that there are other very good restaurants in Palermo but this ended up being one of my favorite dinners in my April wine tour of Italy. I think the combination of good food, knowledgable and friendly service, a clean casual environment, and affordable pricing made Vitina very memorable.

Alas, Vitina has no website but their phone number is +39-327-6540460. Bookings are recommended and go early before the place gets busy, some local reviews point to a drop in quality at peak periods.