CANNOLO - SICILIAN Canteen — Restaurant in Antwerp

I'll start by saying that the atmosphere and service in this cozy café are great. There's a warm welcome, and a good feeling as soon as you step in the door.

This is a long one so tl;dr: DO NOT go for the menu. Eat a la carte. Order a sandwich and cannoli. If I had done that, I would have rated it 4 stars without hesitation.

For a full review... what a DISAPPOINTMENT. Each savoury course was a letdown and ranged from poorly seasoned and bland to downright disgusting. If this is a taste of Sicily, maybe better head to Naples instead. I don't want to be mean, because I really get the sense they are trying, but they are truly trying too hard without having any understanding of the basics of what makes food appealing or how to balance flavours.

I had the €39 menu. The starter was okay (a 4/10 dish): unmemorable eggs and mayo, somewhat decent homemade sourdough bread and cheese with pickles/olives that just smelled unpleasant (to me... and I usually like pickles and fermented food, so I don't know). The next course was the arancini... and I'm certain all the generations of chefs in Italy would collectively weep tears of shame if they tasted how flavourless this atrocity was. Why? How? Can anyone think of the damn salt and herbs??? Making something deep fried taste so much like sawdust is actually a bit impressive.

And don't get me started on the bizarre design of sauce put on the main plate. They pay more attention to that design than to seasoning any of their food. Why? Not sure... I don't know if it had a special meaning, and it also didn't taste much like anything.

The next course produced the most flavour... this was actually passable (though I wasn't keen on all the dishes), and if it was the only thing served, they may have gotten 3 stars out of 5. The veggie medley and bean mash dish were okay. The slow cooked egg and tomato with cheese dish tasted like vomit to me, but this is subjective, and my companion found it to be okay, though some spots had no seasoning while others were too salty... I guess because of the distribution of the cheese? The sourdough bread served with this course was burnt, which we could smell before the course was served. I'm surprised any professional kitchen would send out burnt food, but maybe I'm ignorant, and this is a Sicilian thing? If so, mea culpa.

The penultimate course was a sandwich. At this point, I was terrified to put anything in my mouth, but it was pleasantly inoffensive and, as such, was a win for them in my book.

And now, the dessert. This was a pistachio cannoli that made all my suffering up to this point almost worth it. It wasn't overly sweet, and though a more intense pistachio flavour would have been welcome, eating this was a delight and was a high note to end the overall disappointment of the evening. Compliments to the chef!

One extra note about the service, though really our server was the nicest, she did ask what we thought of the food way too often, it made us wonder if there were doubts in the kitchen because asking a couple of times is normal... but every time you pass, plus when serving courses, it made us feel a bit under pressure or that the kitchen was not confident of their cooking and we were guinea pigs of an experiment that needed urgent feedback. At the end, she asked again, and the opinion here was...

We were passing by this cute little "street food" restaurant and we initially decided to stop just for a Cannolo. However, the good vibes and the friendliness of the staff have convinced us to stay for dinner. We are so happy we discovered a perl of Antwerp!! As Sicilian, I can really say that the dishes we choose were original and with a twist which we really appreciate! Also, we found good drinks from Sicily such as Tomarchio. Panelle and polpette were super good and brought the smile to our face! We look forward to come back to take cannolo con ricotta and try all the other dishes!

P.s : If you look for the very trashy and salty street food and for the tiny "fake" cannoli, please don't go here! You will be disappointed by the genuinity of the ingredients and the fine...

I really like the restaurant’s atmosphere and its friendly staff. Nothing to say anything remotely critical about that.

The food was a bit disappointing, though, as some tastes did not come close to what we have had in Sicily. The crust of the arancini were very thick and overpowering the bland taste of the rice mixture inside. The Cannolo with pistachio cream praline was okay, but could have been so much better. I have missed the intense green colour, the creaminess, and the sweet pistachio flavour that are so typical for this Sicilian delicacy. Perhaps these dishes were not supposed to match what you will get in Sicily, but it did not come close either.

On a more positive note, the sandwich with pickled mackerel was very tasty and this I would love to...