‘Everything here is just right': TOM PARKER BOWLES has lunch on the small Aeolian Island of Salina

Daily Mail​

05-07-2025

It's just after 1pm on the small Aeolian Island of Salina, and not much is happening at all. A few tourists wander through the harbour, oblivious to the searing sun, while the locals, with one last cigarette and a final titbit of gossip, shut up shop in readiness for the siesta ahead. At Porto Bello, a small, elegant restaurant above the harbour, lunch is in full swing. We gaze down and watch the slow ferry from Naples disgorge its contents – cars, vans and small lorries – on to the quay, a spit of drab concrete in an otherwise pellucid sea. But it soon departs, and all is quiet once more, save for the clink of ice on glass, and the clatter of knife and fork.
Everything moves slowly here, a life lived in thrall to the island's ancient rhythm. This is the land of volcanoes and obsidian, of Odysseus and Aeolus, of capers, swordfish and pungent wild herbs. We order wine – crisp, white and cool, the grapes grown on the lushly fertile slopes of Mount Etna – and eat raw grouper, sliced tracing-paper thin, mixed with shavings of parmesan and slivers of red onion. It may sound a little odd (fish! cheese!), but it's a dish of gentle elegance – a joyous symphony of the sweet, soft and salty.
Tuna tartare is more robust, great chunks in various degrees of crimson, meaty but mellow, the acidity perfectly judged. There are pieces of celery and a handful of capers, all bathed in a slick of golden oil. When the raw ingredients are this fine there's little point in mucking them about. Spaghetti vongole next, the pasta tight and taut, a dash of pasta water added at the end to emulsify those juices into a sauce. A generous dusting of grated bottarga adds an extra blast of ocean depth.
Frito misto arrives hot from the fryer, the squid wearing the very lightest of batters, the butterflied anchovies clad in a breadcrumb crust. Prawns, naked and fried for mere seconds, are incandescently fresh, delivered, like everything else, by the fisherman that morning. You will not eat better fish. Then coffee, joltingly strong, and a glass of local malvasia with homemade biscotti. We linger late into the afternoon, gazing out over the sea towards Lipari. Everything here is just right, seasoned with the exquisite ennui of nothing much to do. The afternoon ferry slides in, and out once more. The rest of the island sleeps.