The table
Granita and brioche: the Catanese breakfast, explained
It is not ice cream, it is not drunk through a straw, and in June it is eaten at eight in the morning. A short manual for not getting breakfast wrong.
3 min read
All issuesThe first time you order a granita in Catania you almost always get something wrong. You ask for a plastic spoon, you pick the wrong flavour for the season, or — the cardinal error — you order one at five in the afternoon as though it were an ice cream.
Granita is breakfast. From June to September, in this city, it is the breakfast.
What it actually is
It is not crushed ice with syrup poured over it: that is a different thing, and you can tell because it separates in the glass. Sicilian granita is churned while it freezes, so the crystals stay tiny and the texture stays creamy from the first spoonful to the last. If the spoon stands up it is too hard; if it runs, it is already finished.
There are three or four ingredients, no more. Water, sugar, and the flavour: almond, pistachio, lemon, mulberry, coffee, strawberry. Milk plays no part — with the exception of almond, where the almond cream does the work itself.
What it is eaten with
With brioche col tuzzu: the Sicilian brioche with the little topknot, that tuzzu which is the first piece to come away and the first to be dipped. It is not a croissant, it is not as sweet as a croissant, and it is built to be submerged.
The right method is simple: pull off the tuzzu, dip it, keep going piece by piece. The spoon is for the end, for whatever is left at the bottom.
Ordering the brioche separately "so as not to make a mess" means ordering two separate things. The granita and the brioche are one.
Which flavour, and when
- Almond. The fundamental one. If a bar makes this well, it makes everything else well.
- Lemon. The hardest: without the fat of the almond, every flaw shows. Perfect on very hot mornings.
- Mulberry. June and July only, when there are actual black mulberries. If you find it in October, it is not mulberry.
- Pistachio. Less traditional than tourism suggests, but unforgettable when it is Bronte pistachio.
- Coffee with cream. The breakfast of Catanesi on their way to work. Not a concession to a sweet tooth: it is coffee, in another form.
The classic August order is a mezza e mezza: two flavours in the same glass, almost always almond and coffee, or lemon and mulberry.
The hour
Early. In summer the bars open at half past six, and by nine the best granita is gone — the mulberry in particular, which is made in small quantities. From eleven onwards you are eating what is left.
Out of season, from October to May, breakfast returns to coffee and brioche, or ciambella and ricotta pastries. Granita does not disappear, but it becomes something you have when the sun is out rather than a rule.
Where
We are not making a list: signs change, and recommendations written three years ago send people to places that no longer exist. The test, though, never goes out of date: look at how many flavours there are. A bar with four flavours almost always makes them well; one offering fourteen in August almost always makes them from a bought-in base.
And then there is the domestic version, which is the one we serve: breakfast made at home, with whatever the market gave us that week. It does not compete with the bar on the corner — it is a different idea of the same hour of the day.