I like the way Italians name their restaurants. There's practicality and down-to-earthness at work in a naming convention that often includes the owner, or even previous owner, or grandmother; sometimes refers to its location or an attribute of the place's history; and that usually makes reference to the accepted coding system which only Italians seem really to understand that tells you what kind of establishment it is - osteria, trattoria, ristorante. So a name that translates as Temptations of Taste seems to break with all of that accepted wisdom, and risks sounding a bit tacky. When the B&B owner drew circles on my map of Trapani to indicate good places to eat, he wrote just Gusto, so either he couldn't spell Tentazioni or he felt the name is tacky too. There was nothing tacky about the food though.
It was a hot evening. The clear skies of the day had clouded over thunderously and occasional spots of rain spattered the pavements, threatening to break into a downpour. Gusto (as I prefer to call it) didn't start serving until 8pm, so I spent the previous hour outside a bar within spitting distance, so to speak, of the restaurant, drinking cold beer and watching my fellow drinkers, thinking how different this was from a British pub. Men in smart suits dropped in, presumably after the office and before home, and sipped from cocktail glasses. A beautiful, elegant young woman in an evening dress joined them and drank a glass of wine. Pairs of young girls in jeans sat and sipped coke and coffee, and smoked. Groups of teenage boys gradually swelled in numbers, pulling in more chairs as required, and carrying on earnest and animated conversation. They didn't drink, and as each additional boy arrived, there was much kissing of cheeks. See what I mean about not being like a British pub?
From where I sat I could watch the staff at Gusto lay the tables and set out the chairs in the alley outside the restaurant. Lighting the oil lamps at either end of the alley signalled they were ready to serve, and I sidled up to my table for one. The two dishes that most tickled my fancy on the menu were both pasta. A busiate with wild board ragu, which I ate second, was excellent. The two glasses of wine, white with my first bowl of pasta and red with the busiate, which the waiter had gently but firmly steered me towards, were superb. The service, the knowledgeable explanation of the dishes, the genuine desire that you enjoyed the food, was exemplary. But it was the first bowl of pasta, bucatini with sardines, that was the star. I'd eaten this dish in Palermo, and was impressed. But this rendition was so many notches up it was in a different league. Sardines so fresh you needed your sea legs to eat them just melted in the mouth. Pine nuts and raisins wafted in the Arab world like a breeze across an oasis. Wild fennel lent a heady other-worldliness. I don't usually photograph the food I'm eating (I'd rather just eat it), but on this occasion I couldn't resist recording how simply this dish was presented, compared to how sublime it tasted. Unsurprisingly, every table was filled by the time I left.
So, that name. I still think it's tacky. But maybe there's something about that temptation thing after all.
Tentazioni di Gusto, Via Badia Nuova, 27, 91100 Trapani, Sicily
Tel 0923 548165
Can't find a website of its own. Google probably rejected the tacky name. Doesn't matter - if you're in Trapani, this is where to eat.
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