Ristorante Retroscena - Siracusa — Restaurant in Syracuse

Oh my god! So we don't do pretentious, we were looking for atmosphere and tasty food.. Well we scored here. We tried an expensive restaurant in Letojanni , and was looking to spend at least £70 a head (they didn't know this) and was looked down on, ignored for service and the food was the same as everywhere else. Rubbish. So we tried again in Syracuse. We found a food blog mentioning Retroscena. The food is inexpensive (we only managed 45 euro each with, aperitifs, 2 bottles of wine, 3 courses of food and run out of time for pudding. Even though the kitchen closes at 11, the night goes on until 0100. Unfortunately we were not aware and had a pre booked taxi waiting for us) , but is 5* quality, the ambience is light, airy and just busy enough to be able to enjoy the noise or talk above it. The main reason this place works is your host, Kiri. Her husband is the chef and she rules the front of house. Have a chat, she is dying to educate you, and make your experience the best it can be. She is flexible with her menu and can do nothing wrong... In our eyes we have never been to a BETTER restaurant ever. We visited in June, and booked a table, Kiri told us it's twice as busy in July, August and cannot spend enough time with her...

I really wanted to enjoy the food here as the staff were very cordial and professional. However, the food was just not good. Their website doesn’t have a menu and hard to find what they offer. The restaurant had a lot of good reviews so decided to blindly give it a go. Started with an appetizer, which was written as fried sardines over creamy potatoes. The sardines were overly dry and tasteless placed on top of lumpy, dry mashed potatoes. I choose one of the daily specialties as my main course only to have the wait staff come back to tell me they no longer had that dish available. It was lobster with pasta. It was less than 2 hours after they opened and it was not busy at all, 6 other people in the restaurant. I had to look back over the menu to make another choice. I don’t eat meat, si it was a hard choice with such a limited merit. I decided on spaghetti with frutti di mare. The seafood was small pieces of chewy, overcooked seafood. The sauce had no flavor other than the hot pepper flakes on it. Pictures are when the dish arrived and when it was returned barely touched. The bread was very good, fresh and warm, basically what I...

This restaurant is absolutely gorgeous - the owner is the most lovely woman who will warmly welcome you and recommend excellent wines and dishes. I ended up visiting 3 times during my time in Ortigia!

In terms of the food, any of the pasta dishes you choose, you will not be disappointed - the seafood pasta with scampi was excellent, as was the ravioli with fig. Special menu was always interesting and lots of delicious options. Have to mention the salad - It’s not always easy to get excited about a salad but, the special of the seasonal salad was phenomenal with a vibrant citrus dressing, almonds, strawberries, avocado and goats cheese - totally perfect. The owner was even kind enough to share the dressing recipe with me! She also gave me a beautiful necklace after my last visit as she makes jewellery as well as managing a fantastic restaurant - so so kind and I was so touched.

Lovely wine list too with plenty of selections of local and organic Sicilian wine.

Thank you so much once again, I hope to be back next year and visit you again. And I absolutely love...