Taberna Sveva

My husband and I were recommended this restaurant by our host here in Ortigia. Wow — we were not disappointed even though it’s a couple of recommandations not so good…
We really felt the nice atmosphere in this taverna, and the cozze (clams) was soooo delicious! They were big, fresh and tasty! The tuna fillet was outstanding, fresh with onion in a very tasty sauce.
We ordered a side dish with fresh tomatos and red onion, this was a really good choice to complete the meal.
For dessert we had the tiramisu made in a local way, with orange! Something completely different from a «normal» tiramisu, but really delicious! With the dessert we had limoncella and local liqour, mmmm…
We will definately come back once more before our holiday is over.

Sitting at the bottom of Ortigia our hotel recommended this place as being off the well-​beaten tourist track. It’s a small little place with modest charm and relatively easy to find.
We started off with the misto mare which was fresh and inventive. The house wine was quaffable but unremarkable. The mains were a bit of a toss up. The gnocchi with clams and arugula was a solid dish that was homey and balanced.
The chef «special» which was similar to the traditional pasta con sarde with the use of anchovies instead of sardines was a major letdown. Somewhat frighteningly, the dish created a burning sensation in the mouth while eating which ultimately led to major feelings of nausea by the end of the night. It’s not clear if it was food poisoning, some chemicals in the fish from the polluted waters north of Siracusa or something less nefarious like an odd, disagreeable ingredient but the result was obviously deeply unpleasant.
Coffees and dessert were fine but it’s hard to recover from the point we were at. I’d like to recommend this place with the hope that it seemed to really have potential but there’s definitely an element of buyer beware.

Es ist gar nicht so einfach, auf Ortigia ein vernünftiges
Restaurant zu finden. So sind wir dann auch etwas abseits der Touristen-​Spots
in der Taberna Sveva gelandet. Das Restaurant ist auf alle Fälle zu empfehlen.