Joe Ray
Food & Travel / Words & Photos
EATING
THE
MOTHERLAND
Food writer and photographer Joe Ray's gastronomic visits in Europe - the home of his ancestors - and beyond.
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Tuesday, November 30, 2010
STARS BETWEEN THE BUILDINGS
A stroll through Ragusa Ibla will shave hours from the time you need to get to know people.
We’ve just had dinner at Pizza Nove. Suffice to say, Ristorante Caravanserraglio retains its Sicilian pizza crown.
We head up to Ragusa Ibla for a walk, stopping off for a completely unnecessary gelato at Gelati DiVini and Francesco orders cups of jasmine and olive oil. (The olive farmer pleases the ladies in our group with edible flowers and does a bit of marketing at the same time - genius!)
More importantly, how do you turn jasmine - still blooming across the countryside in the Sicilian fall - into gelato? And how do you do it so it doesn’t taste like cheap perfume? This is the place to find out.
We head back into the side streets, staring at the stars between the buildings. Smiling. Present.
Gelati DiVini - MAP
Piazza Duomo, 20

Ragusa Ibla, Sicily
http://www.gelatidivini.it
PS - That fuzzy looking thing in the photo of Lex? That’s the gelato - she made us go back the next day. And the blissed-out grin? That’s the gelato, too.
PPS - Gelati DiVini has a host of other gelato flavors - check out writer and Ragusa resident Jann Huizenga’s take on it here, and read my Boston Globe Giro del Gelato here.
Follow me on Twitter: @joe_diner and on Facebook.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Wild Roses
RAGUSA IBLA, SICILY
We took my friend, almond and olive oil producer Francesco Padova, to lunch at Ragusa Ibla’s Il Duomo restaurant – not an easy feat, considering Sicilians’ amazing hosting skills. It was a great way to see what chef Ciccio Sultano’s been up to – more a check on concepts than a critique.
Chef, who I’ve written about previously, came out to say hello and explained a few dishes, but was almost completely knocked out by a cold.
Highlights from the tasting included fusilli lunghi alle rose – long fusilli supporting rockfish fillets, a bed of fennel and a tiny skewer of sautéed fish liver. The fish was firm, the fusilli floppy, the fennel … feral – at least in the ‘wild’ and more alliterate sense of the word. The liver? That just melts on your tongue.
The secret weapon, however, is in the sauce: rose water. Light, like you’re smelling perfume without drinking it, and, as Sultano says, a wink at Sicily’s history, where it showed up as a luxurious ingredient.
Rose water shows up again at dessert, this time in the sorbet accompanying a ‘pistachio couscous’ dessert. The dish is playful in concept – couscous being another wink at Sicilian history – but serious in execution, giving it a divine, cake-like quality.
At 100 euros including wine, the tasting menu is a splurge but still a great value.
Il Duomo MAP
Via Capitano Bocchieri, 31
Ragusa Ibla, Sicily
+39-0932-651265
www.ristoranteduomo.it