Trattoria da Mario — Restaurant in Catania

WARNING: Your small stomach is not ready for this place. If you think you're so hungry you could eat a whole horse—think twice. If you’ve ever felt scammed in Taormina by overpriced restaurants, this is your chance to take revenge in Sicily.

At this restaurant, you’ll be greeted by super friendly staff who will offer you a table. Then they’ll politely begin to tell you the dinner menu. I'm sure you'll ask if they have a menu you can read slowly, so you can decide what to eat—but they'll just smile and say there's no menu. And then... the feast begins.

You’ll receive dish after dish at a ridiculous low price (including a bottle of house red wine). A few minutes in, food will start flowing to your table, and you’ll start wondering if you came here with your girlfriend—or a basketball team. (Yeah, we Lithuanians love basketball.)

In the middle of the starters, you'll begin to think about how to politely hide food in napkins so as not to offend the kitchen chef for not finishing everything. Finally, when they start clearing the plates, the last thing you want to hear is: “What would you like for your main?”

It’s probably hard to remember all the options, so you just pick the mains you can still understand. But at that point, your stomach isn’t thinking about food—it’s thinking about how long it will take to get home.

After the mains, while you're still trying to finish your wine, the waiter asks if you’re ready for dessert: “Lemon sherbet?” Really? Why, God?

After the whole session, you start thinking the whole thing might’ve been a scam—and that you’ll have to stay an extra week in Sicily (not the worst thing) working in the kitchen to pay the bill. But when the bill comes—you can’t believe it. It’s more than fair.

Big thanks to our friend Michael (I can’t even call him a waiter) for the amazing service and all his knowledge about food. Best wishes to the entire team. I hope next time we come, you’ll still have a table for us.

Big...

was suggested this place by a local vendor as we had asked for a eatery where locals eat. it did not disappoint.. place was packed when we arrived at approx 9.30pm. staff acknowledged us as soon as we stopped and it took approximately 15min to get us a table as they waited for other diners to finish and leave. as soon as we were seated a waiter gave us a plastic container with cutlery and napkins and informed us that the menu is a set one consisting of various starters, mains deserts and drinks for $20euro. upon arrival we did not this but we’re happy to give it a go. within 5 mins the food started to arrived. at first we thought it was a joke, with so many smaller dishes turning up. having a look around at other tables we realised this was correct. fine dining it isn’t but food was tasty and plenty of it. after allowing us time to attempt to finish all the starters waiter asked what our choices were for mains. we noticed most other tables (locals)had been given take away containers to take there left overs away. unfortunately, approx half of ours were taken away. mains arrived, pork and cavallo( horse) again not fine dining but certainly very honest food. choice of drinks consists of local red wine, soft drink and moretti beer. finished off with a coffee and lemon sorbet all for $20 euro!!! we left extremely full(having probably only consumed half the food) and extremely happy with...

A friend recommended this restaurant to us. We arrived there around 8pm for dinner on a Saturday night. We had a big group of 10 and they were very accommodating. The restaurant filled up soon after that and there were lots of people waiting to be seated by the time we left.

We couldn't believe the amount of food that we got for €20 per person. The first course included wine, salami and cheese board, bread basket, marinated olives, marinated mushrooms, eggplant parmigiana, fried breaded eggplants, egg omelet/ quiche, eggplant meatballs, french fries, bruschetta, orzo salad, and more! We thought that was it. We couldn't finish everything so I think a lot of food was wasted.

Then we were informed that there's a second course too! We had a choice of thin breaded chicken, grilled thin beef steaks, or grilled thin horse steaks. The beef and horse steaks were very tender and good. The chicken was a little on the dry side. Those in the group who ordered those didn't eat much of it. We were also pretty full by this point.

I think it's more quantity versus quality of the food here. It was an entertaining experience to see everyone's expressions when all the food arrived at the table for the first course. Everything was mediocre in taste. I've had better food in other restaurants in the area. But not at this price so maybe that is what's attractive to...