Sicilian restaurant in Amsterdam: Le Due Sicilie – reviewed

If you try going out for dinner on a Friday night in West without a reservation, you won’t be getting a table anywhere worth eating. In Oost, on the other hand, there’s a good chance you’ll wander into somewhere half empty (at least in my buurt), assume that means it’s terrible, and walk straight out again. Which is a mistake I’m glad I didn’t make last Friday at Sicilian restaurant Le Due Sicilie, just down the road from my new Eastside abode. We walked past looking surreptitiously through the windows at the basic décor and wondering whether the one other table with a customer at it might make for enough atmosphere. Luckily for us, we chanced it – and we were richly rewarded.

The house Nero d’Avola is good – which you’d expect, given its Sicilian origin. But the food is even better. We ordered two antipasti to share, not realising they’d be practically the size of a main course. One was pulpo in a rich sauce with tomato, peppers, capers and all things that remind you of Mediterranean sunshine. The other was swordfish with equally Sicilian ingredients like pine nuts and olives. Both were palate-pleasingly tender and full of flavour, and both came with fantastic Altamura bread splashed with good olive oil.

After the largest antipasti known to Italy we barely needed anything more, but we were desperate to try the pasta. So we opted for a bowl of Ziti spezzati alla Genovese, which in layman’s terms denotes tubular pasta with a slow-cooked beef ragù and lashings of pecorino. It was perfect, and was excellently complemented by the Nero d’Avola.

Dinner came to around €70 for the two of us, and they even put a cork in our bottle of wine so we could take the remainder home with us. In fact, the servers were lovely all round. I’m not sure if we actually met “le due Sicilie” who own the place, but if not then I hope to next time. Because there will definitely be a next time – and the sooner the better.