If you love Sicilian cuisine, you’ll want to head to Roberto’s restaurant in Amsterdam right now
Located in the Hilton Amsterdam, Roberto’s has been a favorite Italian restaurant in the capital for thirty years. And the fun part: its thirtieth anniversary is being celebrated in a unique way. Every two months, a different region of Italy takes center stage—with the most delicious dishes from that region. During the summer months (July & August), classics from Sicilian cuisine adorn the menu. And that means eating divine arancina and caponata!
Roberto’s pure cuisine
At Roberto’s, one of our favorite Italian restaurants in Amsterdam, they have spent thirty years striving to preserve Italy’s culinary heritage and traditional dishes. So don’t expect trendy fusion dishes here, but pure Italian cuisine served in an equally traditional interior.
Although the menu also features dishes from beyond our favorite Italian island, such as a classic, velvety Carpaccio Cipriani (from Harry’s Bar in Venice), we come for the dishes from Sicily.
Typical Sicily: cuscus
We love the dishes from this island, where influences from the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Arabs come together. For example, the dish Couscous estivo is on the menu: couscous with a salad of fresh vegetables, white bean cream, lemon dressing, and mint. Sicily is, after all, the home of cuscus; it is a distant relative of the famous dish from the Maghreb.
Arancina
And if you’d rather eat rice in Sicily, you’ll soon end up with arancina: stuffed, breaded, and deep-fried round or oblong rice balls. Naturally, arancina is also on Roberto’s menu: arancina al ragù e crema di piselli. A not-so-modest tower of fried rice with beef ragù, served on a pea cream. Executed to perfection, this dish is rich thanks to the filling, crunchy thanks to the fried crust, and fresh from the pea cream. Incredibly delicious! Funnily enough, risotto was supposedly invented by a somewhat clumsy Sicilian cook, according to legend. He failed to make arancini and served risotto in its current form.
Popular street food
The Sgombro alla beccafico is also particularly successful: a mackerel roll filled with almond flour, breadcrumbs, raisins, and grated pecorino, served with a sweet-and-sour onion salad and orange sauce. It is a variation on Palermo’s popular street food: sarde a beccafico. In other words: delicious sardines stuffed with raisins, lemon juice, and aromatic herbs. This Sicilian interpretation with sardines originated as a dish of the poor and was named after a small bird that is crazy about figs, hence its name: the beccafico. The Romans already loved this little bird. The people of Palermo also prepared this dish, but not with the luxurious bird; instead, they used what they had in abundance: sardines, whose tail resembles that of the bird.
Caponata
If you say Sicily, you also say caponata. At the FavorFlav editorial office, we adore this sweet-and-sour stewed vegetable dish starring eggplant. At Roberto’s, the caponata is served with free-range chicken, called pollo ruspante con caponata siciliana. Two tender pieces of free-range chicken are served with the famous Sicilian sauce of red onions, tomato salsa, raisins, basil, pine nuts, eggplant, breadcrumbs, and ricotta. This dish is truly heartwarming. So soothingly tender, wonderfully delicious! Did you know that the tomato arrived in Italy in 1554? Because of its alleged aphrodisiac properties, the tomato is called puma d’amuri in Sicilian dialect.
Everything pistachio
Also typically Sicilian: the pistachio. The best pistachio in the world comes from Bronte and is also called ‘the green gold of Sicily’. ‘Il pistacchio verde di Bronte’ has had a protected designation of origin and a Slow Food label since 2009. Speaking of slow food: pistachios are harvested every other year because pistachio trees alternate between productive and unproductive years. Special, right? The volcanic soil creates the powerful aromas and sweet flavor. And you can taste that in the heavenly gelato; the homemade pistachio ice cream is hands down the best pistachio ice cream we’ve eaten in a long time.
Oh, that cannolo!
True pistacchio fans can also fill their cannolo—Sicily’s greatest sweet invention—with this ice cream. Because however strict Italians often are, the filling of cannolo can be varied: whipped cream, buffalo ricotta, chocolate, pistachio cream—the possibilities are endless. We choose the homemade vanilla ice cream, and the huge dessert is completely devoured.
Tempted? Then hurry to Roberto’s, where Sicilian cuisine will be celebrated throughout this entire month (August 2024).
Roberto’s, Apollolaan 138, Amsterdam
