Gastronauts
Sicily in Rome

Have you ever eaten at the Sicilian fast-food café Mondo Arancina in London’s Notting Hill district? If you haven’t, (and even if you have) take some advice and try the original at via Marcantonio Colonna 38, where, if you like strong, decisive tastes, you’ll be able to savour a vast array of unique delicacies.

By Francesca Camerino
november 2008

Apart from classics like pizza by the slice, panini, panelle (delicious deep-fried chick pea flour patties) customers come especially to enjoy the speciality of the house arancine piping hot risotto balls. Bite into an arancina ("little orange") and you get a succulent, grainy mouthful of Italian risotto with a surprise at its heart. It might be a warm dollop of spinach and ricotta, bolognese ragu, peas or creamed funghi. And there are other, far richer varieties. The arancine are deep-fried in fresh olive oil which is changed after each batch and are available in 15 flavours. Cost: 2.20 euros each. I would suggest you try ‘Stromboli’ filled with aubergine (eggplant) and tomato or ‘Etna’ which features a spicy filling of tomato and chilli.

The ovens are fired up early and from 8.00 am onwards you can drop in for arancine, pizza, sfincioni (thick Sicilian pizza with a spongy crust), anelletti (Sicilian oven-cooked pasta rings), pitoni, (savoury coiled fritters stuffed with a range of fillings) or typical pastries like pignolata, made with almonds and pine nuts. The owners personally guarantee the quality of all the ingredients used at Mondo Arancina: flour, olive oil, groundnut oil, tomato sauce, cheeses, almonds, sugar, chocolate, etc. How can you say no?
Even after a hearty meal why pass on dessert? Next to Mondo Arancina is Gelarmony, a Sicilian ice-cream parlour with a vast array of hand-crafted gelati made on the premises that is open everyday until late. As I entered the first thing I saw was a giant brioche filled with ice-cream – a classic Sicilian treat – and if you really want to go to town it can all be topped off with whipped cream. The display cabinets offer a colourful and bewildering array of flavours to choose from but the staff at Gelarmony are more than happy to offer advice on mixing and matching your choice: intense flavours which delicately caress the senses.

Only natural products are used at Gelarmony and all the ice-creams – fruit-flavours or creamy – are hand-made in-house. For people who are allergic to dairy products there’s also a range of soya ice-creams. And there’s not only ice-cream; you might want to try the deliciously refreshing granite, a crushed ice drink made with fruit or coffee, or any one of the dozens of tempting cakes and pastries that fill the cool cabinets: Frozen yoghurt, mousses, mignon pastries with a dazzling choice of fillings, ice-cream cakes, orange slices glazed with chocolate, sponge cakes filled with ricotta cheese and covered with almond cream - and of course, that most classic of Sicilian pastries: cannoli – fried pastry dough filled with sweet creamy ricotta cheese topped with chocolate chips and candied fruit. You’re simply spoilt for choice.