Licata · Sicilian south coast
A two-Michelin-star Sicilian table on the south coast at Licata, kept by Pino and Loredana Cuttaia since 2000 — a kitchen built on memory, where a piece of cod smoked over…
La note
A two-Michelin-star table on the south coast of Sicily, opened in 2000 by Pino Cuttaia and his wife Loredana — a kitchen built on the memory of their island, where the smoke of pinecones, the shell of a cuttlefish and the husk of a Sicilian sun become a whole storytelling vocabulary. The first star arrived in 2006, the second in 2009; the rooms were redrawn by Fatima Costa in plaster, wood, iron and marble.
From the editors · Vedere House
Les particularités
Licata is a small port town on the south coast of Sicily, halfway between Agrigento and Gela. The Cuttaia family came from here; Pino was born in 1967 and left as a boy for Piedmont, where the trade carried him through Il Sorriso at Soriso and Il Patio at Pollone. In 2000 he came back with Loredana Cipriano, his wife of two years, and the two of them opened a small restaurant on the Corso — la madia, in the dialect of the island, is the wooden chest in which the family kept the bread. The first Michelin star arrived in 2006 and the second in 2009.
“Each of my dishes contains a touch of memory. Without memory, there is no room for innovation.
”
The line is the kitchen's grammar. The Merluzzo Affumicato sulla Pigna — cod smoked over a pinecone — comes from the children who used to gather pinecones for the household fire, and from the pizzaiola technique with which the housewives of Licata reused the day's leftover meat. The Uovo di Seppia is an emptied cuttlefish shell filled with the same cuttlefish, gently poached for twenty minutes, and stood in for the egg the kitchen never had. The Nuvola di Caprese is a cloud of mozzarella over a tomato carpaccio, the Lasagnetta of anchovies a small layered miniature. Three tasting menus run through the year — L'Illusione (€150), Il Mare Inaspettato (€170) and the long Scala dei Turchi (€190), named for the chalk-white sea cliff a few kilometres up the coast — with à la carte alongside.
The dining room was redrawn by the architect Fatima Costa in pale plaster, light wood and dark iron — terracotta-leather chairs, paper-cloud pendant lamps, the line of an inner courtyard with a small succulent garden glazed into one wall. Loredana keeps the front of the house and the wine list; the rhythm is Sicilian-slow, with lunch from one and dinner from eight. The right way to take it, in the end, is the long midday — drive down from Agrigento past the Scala dei Turchi, sit at the table for three hours, and let the kitchen tell you the story of the island it came home to.
Moments choisis
01
Pino Cuttaia was born in Licata in 1967 and left as a child for Piedmont, where the family settled near Turin. He learned the trade in the Piedmontese kitchens of Il Sorriso at Soriso and Il Patio at Pollone — Michelin-starred houses both — and married Loredana Cipriano in 1998. Two years later, in 2000, the couple came back to Licata and opened La Madia on the Corso. The first star arrived in 2006, the second in 2009. The kitchen has stayed there since.
02
Cuttaia describes his cooking as a form of storytelling, and the line *senza memoria non c'è spazio per l'innovazione* — without memory there is no room for innovation — runs through every menu. The signatures are autobiographical: a piece of merluzzo smoked over a pinecone, after the children who once collected pinecones for the household fire; the *Uovo di Seppia*, an emptied cuttlefish shell filled and gently poached, standing in for an egg; the *Nuvola di Caprese*, a cloud of mozzarella over a tomato carpaccio. The two-star kitchen now turns three named tasting menus through the season — L'Illusione, Il Mare Inaspettato, and the long Scala dei Turchi.
03
The interior was redrawn for the family by the architect Fatima Costa, in pale-plaster walls and light wood, dark iron and onyx-veined marble — the warm side of Sicilian neutrals, with no white-tablecloth shouting. A glazed inner courtyard set into one wall keeps a small succulent garden visible from the table; the second, more intimate room is panelled in walnut around a single round table for the long evenings. Loredana keeps the front of house and the wine list; the family hospitality is, as she has said herself, *the vision I married into*.
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