San Domenico Palace: Principe Cerami in Taormina, Sicilian tasting menus

Massimo Mantarro was born at the foot of Mount Etna and traces his early interest in food to his family’s garden and his mother’s Sicilian recipes. After working in Torino and other kitchens in southern Italy, he returned to Sicily. At Principe Cerami, that background comes through a contemporary treatment of the island’s food: recognisable ingredients arrive with combinations and textures that invite you to pay attention to the plate.

Start with the choice the restaurant actually gives you. Its Gourmet Experience allows you to combine your own menu: 4 courses at €195 or 5 at €230 in the menu read on 17 October 2026. The list runs from starters through first courses and mains to dessert. That suits a diner who wants a composed dinner while retaining a say in its direction. Read the available dishes together before deciding how to build the sequence.

The alternative is the named Principe Cerami menu, 6 courses at €260 in the same reading. It begins with sweet fennel and caviar, followed by an Arcimboldo-inspired arrangement of seasonal vegetables served raw, cooked and marinated. The pasta and rice courses then bring the meal towards Etna and the coast, before black Nebrodi piglet belly and a pistachio, lemon and coffee ending. Choose it when those particular dishes appeal to the whole table.

The Mount Etna spaghetti is the clearest meeting of place and plate. Artisanal spaghetti Piazza comes with tomato, salty ricotta cheese and black breadcrumbs. It appears on the restaurant’s current menu and in Four Seasons’ signature-dish selection. Those few ingredients give you something concrete to expect from the course, and a good reason to ask for it if this is your first dinner here. The name belongs to the pasta dish on the menu.

The rice course combines Gallo Carnaroli Gran Riserva with yellow pumpkin, clams and lemon. Among the main-course choices in the Gourmet Experience are crusted sea bass with ragusano cheese, water mussels and baby lettuce, or pullet with carrots and foie gras. A cardoncello mushroom course adds coffee and Vastedda del Belice cheese. These descriptions matter for dietary planning: fish can come with cheese, vegetables with dairy, and poultry with foie gras.

A vegetable-led plate here can be elaborate in its own right. The Arcimboldo-inspired course brings seasonal produce in several preparations, while the cardoncello main combines mushroom, coffee and a Sicilian cheese. Discuss your requirements before reserving a full vegetarian or vegan sequence, especially if you want to avoid dairy or seafood as well as meat. The published dishes give a useful starting point for that conversation without promising an adaptation the kitchen has not agreed.

Dessert gives you several distinct endings. Pistachio, lemon and coffee is the conclusion of the named tasting menu; the wider dessert list also offers bread with red grapes, black olives and goat’s milk. Another plate combines nori seaweed, lime, 72% dark chocolate and salted caramel. Choose according to whether you want nuts and citrus, a bread-and-fruit direction or a chocolate finish with seaweed and lime.

Wine is a substantial part of the restaurant’s proposition. Four Seasons describes a cellar of more than 1,000 labels, curated and paired by head sommelier Alessandro Malfitana. A diner who wants wine to shape the evening can discuss that alongside the food sequence. Tell the team your preferences and budget, then agree whether you want a bottle or a course-by-course recommendation; the published menu figures alone do not describe your eventual drinks order.

Principe Cerami is the choice for Mantarro’s tasting menus. The other venues give you a way to spend another part of the day without repeating that same sort of meal.