“I'm a big pizza eater,” Francesco “Ciccio” Leone confesses. “But what I like most is being together with friends, conviviality.” The broad-shouldered Palermo native, 50, greets everyone who enters his establishment with a welcoming smile. It was during a dinner party held at his home that he came up with the idea for the name of his pizzeria. “The name came about by chance,” he recalls. “My friends would come to my house to eat, they would say, ‘Ciccio, pass me this; Ciccio, pass me that,’ and so I thought of calling the pizzeria Ciccio Passami l’Olio, which means ‘Ciccio, pass me the oil.’”

Pastory is located on Via Sammartino, in an affluent area of Palermo; however, this fresh pasta shop has its roots in revolution. It all began in 1968, a year marked by emancipatory struggles in France and beyond, which were reshaping societal norms and providing women with new avenues for participation and empowerment. Inspired by this transformative era, Serena Sabatino's grandmother, Angelina di Carluccio, made the decision to migrate from Naples to Palermo. Accompanied by her husband, Raffaele Sabatino, who had secured employment in Sicily, Angelina brought with her a wealth of knowledge about the Neapolitan art of pasta fresca all'uovo (fresh egg pasta).

To properly introduce Palermo, CB’s newest location, we turned to our local experts: correspondent and photographer Francesco Cipriano and walk leader Maria Luisa. In celebration of the launch, we spoke with them about Palermo’s gastronomic scene, the special Sicilian relationship with food, and their favorite places in the city. Francesco is a writer and photographer born in New York to a family of Sicilian immigrants who then moved to Switzerland before finally returning to Sicily – the place, he says, that feels the most like home. Maria Luisa is a native Sicilian and a professional culinary guide. She got her culinary start from her grandmother, who taught her how to knead dough to make bread, how to forage for wild plants and how to appreciate a good glass of wine.