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Taste of Sicily: Dining Experiences at San Domenico Palace, Taormina, A Four Seasons Hotel

Tuesday, June 22, 2021

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This summer, guests arriving at the newly reopened San Domenico Place, Taormina, A Four Seasons Hotel will be delighted with the exciting restaurant and bar offering. Award winning Executive Chef and Sicilian native Massimo Mantarro is at the helm of the Hotlel’s food and beverage program, and as such, the menus are infused with his inventive take on Sicilian tastes and traditions.

Grace, kindness and passion are the words that best characterise Massimo Mantarro. His cooking is the quintessence of Sicily, but reinvented. His plates exalt local ingredients and traditions and are simple, elegant and decidedly local, uniting the sea, the land and the force and fertility of the nearby volcano Mount Etna.

“Tradition fuels my thinking in the kitchen, and I strive to innovate constantly through my cooking technique with my beloved Sicily always on top of my mind,” muses Chef Massimo Mantarro.

Travellers and locals will have many opportunities to experience Mantarro’s genius at San Domenico Palace. He oversees every detail from the back of the house through the front at four distinctive food and beverage outlets: Principe Cerami, Rosso, Anciovi and Bar & Chiostro.

The signature fine-dining Principe Cerami is the Hotel’s marquee restaurant. It is named after Sicilian nobleman Prince Domenico Rosso di Cerami, who inherited the convent around 1866, creating the circumstances for it to become a Hotel in 1896. The restaurant is intimate, sized for just 30 guests to enjoy Mantarro’s contemporary reinterpretations of classic Sicilian cuisine that combine local ingredients and traditions into deceptively simple creations. For example, in his signature aubergine ravioli, Mantarro revisits a classic dish of Italy’s south, the Parmigiana. In Mantarro’s version tiny morsels of aubergine, mozzarella and tomato are encased in delicate pasta dough, so that this traditional dish acquires an entirely new texture; it is suddenly light and airy and simply delectable.

In addition to Principe Cerami, San Domenico Palace will feature two other restaurants, Rosso and Anciovi, as well as Bar & Chiostro for cocktails and light snacks. Rosso is the Hotel’s all day dining restaurant and will specialise in Sicilian as well as international classics. Comfort food is the name of the game at Rosso, whether one craves it Sicilian style with a tasty arancino alla Catanese (fried rice ball with a meat ragu) or prefer a tried-and-true club sandwich. At Anciovi, the poolside restaurant, guests can enjoy a veritable feast of local fresh fish in a variety of styles, from “Sicilian sushi” to a plateau of raw fish and oysters to grilled local catch of the day. With the setting of the sun behind magnificent Mount Etna, Anciovi is the perfect place for drinks and dinner with friends to share plates and listen to the beats of a DJ.

As its name suggests Bar & Chiostro is the Hotel’s bar, located in the main hall with an incredibly chic outdoor area in the Grand Cloister, framed by palm trees and subtropical plants. Here guests will be able to taste exciting cocktails that have taken inspiration from the history of the hotel and Taormina, a destination long known to the international jet set, and frequented by royals, captains of industry, literary greats and Hollywood stars for over a century. Take En Plein Air, a cocktail inspired by the photography of Wilhelm von Gloeden, a German artist known for his pastoral nudes shot in different locations in Taormina, among them San Domenico Palace. In this cocktail citrus oleo saccharum (a citrus syrup), passito (a Sicilian dessert wine) and wild nepitella (an aromatic herb) are paired with Bacardi Heritage rum for a drink that inebriates with the flavours of Sicily’s sun and earth.

But guests’ opportunities for extraordinary dining do not end here. Chef Mantarro has also conceived the Hotel’s in-room dining menu, which he has lined with international dishes presented Sicilian style upon colourful plates and ceramics. The hero of in-room breakfast is the granita, he says, describing the traditional Sicilian creamy iced beverage made with homemade almond milk and topped with vanilla whipped cream – ideal accompaniment for a fresh baked brioche served warm.

San Domenico Palace will open this July after a multi-year renovation the sees this legendary hotel overlooking the Ionian Sea and framed by the Etna on the right and Taormina’s iconic ancient Greek Theatre on the left enter a new era as a Four Seasons hotel. Experiencing this breath-taking property would not be the same if the beauty of the destination were not accompanied by equally unforgettable meals, cocktails and snacks. Every dish, every bite, every dessert has been conceived, and every drink or wine has been chosen with the idea to give guests the experience of what it means to live Sicily at its finest.

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