OSTERIA NORMA — Restaurant in Palermo

I honestly don’t understand the hype around this place. We paid around €38 for two pasta dishes and one still water(€3.50 just for the water) and I can confidently say it wasn’t worth it. On top of that, we were charged an extra €5 for service. But to be honest, I’m not sure what service that was referring to. We waited nearly 40 minutes for our pastas, and the overall service was minimal, the waiter simply brought our dishes and added parmesan, which somehow counted as a service charge.

Unfortunately, the food itself didn’t make up for it either. The pasta got cold within a few minutes, and the taste was very underwhelming. I really try to find something positive in every experience, but in this case, it’s difficult. Being in Palermo, in the heart of Italy, where pasta and warm hospitality are expected, I wasn’t asking for much. Just decent food and a friendly atmosphere. Sadly, this visit didn’t...

This place is clearly overrated. It is a touristic place and if you are very hungry and does not care about the quality of the food, this is the place to quickly fill your stomach. We had sardines pasta, porcini pasta, bruschetta, croquettes, limoncello and margaritas. Limoncello was fine, and croquettes, and porcini pasta were acceptable, but others were below average. Sardine pasta was just too salty and no umami of seafood at all. Bruschetta slices somehow had flavours of bacons. Margaritas did not have icy texture, and was not cold enough. Overall, compared to what we had during lunch at 4.7 rating place, this place deserves only half the point in our honest view. I can give high ratings to the location and the volume of the food. Did not meet our expectation...

Never written a review before, but this time as Italian in Italy I do feel compelled to!

Wine: Definitely not an expert, but is this really the best Sicily has to offer? Pellegrino Finimondo, bottle 2022 in Marsala…sorry but it wasn’t just the full-bodied-ness that I missed here…I can tell you the sulphites were there, but the rest?

Pasta(s) pappardelle pesto basilico zucchine noci: 10 to 1 this was Barilla’s pesto - just better than Tesco Deluxe;) Paccheri alla norma: not sure, but anything better than Pelati from Eurospin?!

Dulcis in fundo, olives-cacio-anchovies from Nibbles were ok.

And this was my night in Palermo when I decided to invest something more on food!

XOXO from a desperate UK-based Italian in Sicily for vacation home sick...