Il Galeone - LIPARI

The place on Corso Vittorio Emanuele and close to the fery dock looked nice and there was a smiling young lady outside, who convinced me to go and try this place. Once there I hardly saw her anymore. There was mainly a young waiter in charge, quite okay, but the orders were taken by a lady, who could have been the boss. No hello, no smile and with an expression on her face, that obviously saw in you mainly a wallet. There is outdoor and indoor seating. As a starter I went for 'Tagliolini all 'Eoliana ', which sounded as quite a local dish for me. It came with eggs, capers, black and green olives, tomatoes, basil, mint, garlic, almonds and 'scaglie di cacciocavallo ' (cheese . This sauce was very good, but the Pasta (and I generally like 'al dente ' came for too tough. As a secondo I had 'Involtini di Pesce Spada ', thin slices of swordfish, rolled up and with inside mainly 'mollica ' (the soft inside of bread , cheese, capers, parsley. It came on top of a red coulis that tasted of strawberries. Eating this I thought to myself once more that southern Italian food is one of my least favourite cuisines in the world. To the usual Italian 'PPP ' (Panini, Pizza, Pasta here they add all kind of other bread and dough dishes like 'Cunzatu ', plus on too many dishes there is 'Mollica ' (the soft inside of bread in it, such as in the best known local specialities like 'Pasta alle Sarde ', 'Involtini ', Calamari ripieni ', 'Beccaficcu ' and so on.

My linguine was OK but nothing special. My husband disliked his macaroni and left most of it. This was studiously ignored by the waiter.

The service was wonderful and friendly, the starters too. I had parmegiana Siciliana which was delicious and other starters were good and well presented. The whole tenor of the establishment is let down by the quality of the pizzas, otherwise I woukd have given it five stars.

We stopped over for lunch because all other restaurants were not serving pizza (just in the evening). The pizza was completely dry and hard. I can’t talk about other meals because I didn’t tried it. The service complained because of the coins I used.

This was our favourite restaurant in Lipari. The setting was pleasant with good people watching opportunities, service was good and the food was outstanding. We had the Casarecce (pasta) with tomatoes, eggplant and swordfish; tuna with pistachio crumb; and the catch of the day. The pasta and tuna were particularly delicious!! Wine was good and excellent value. Would highly recommend.