Porta Terra — Restaurant in Cefalù

I am honestly in shock at some of the reviews. If you really think this is a tourist trap, then you’re better off at an Olive Garden. This gem of a restaurant offers fine Sicilian cuisine, some traditional some reinterpreted. The food is excellent, we had the spaghettoni with local tinned anchovies, breadcrumbs, tomatoes and raisins, and the cacio e pepe with the famed red shrimp from Mazara. We followed it with a divine take on the sfincione from Palermo and Bagheria topped with baccalà and a side of local mushroom, all washed down with a fantastic bottle of Aetnan white wine. The service was some of the absolute best I have experienced in Italy - and I’m Italian. If you still are not convinced, maybe Sicily isn’t your thing. I hear there are great...

Porta TERRIBLE. The setting is lovely and the service okay. The staff were polite. All the makings of a decent restaurant here. But the food is beyond abysmal. AVOID. I struggle to describe what an insult to Italian cuisine this place is, even to an ignorant British tourist like myself. Stale supermarket bread, frozen reconstituted mashed potatoes advertised as roasted, a ‘mixed salad’ consisting of enormous chunks of iceberg lettuce and tinned sweetcorn; and, to add insult to injury, a primo of tortellini that was no better (and possibly worse) than a £2 bag of fresh ravioli from Tesco. This was quite simply the worst Italian meal I have ever had—your local British cafe will do better. I wish I could be...

Cibo buonissimo (antipasti : polpo perfetto, pesce spada. Primi : ravioli melanzane, pasta pic pac. Dolci). Staff gentilissimo, eccellente vino. Consigliamo !

The food is amazing, the octopus cooked at low température is out of this world. We also had the pesce spada antipasto, and two primi : ravioli with eggplant and a tuna sauce and pasta pic pac with shrimps, as well as dessert. The staff is extremely nice and helpful and recommended a good wine that paired really well with everything. The location is really nice as well. It's a bit costly but it's Cefalù and it was...