Caseificio Borderi Elefteria

This cheese and meat shop-cum-sidewalk snack bar is a must for its local scene and authentic flavors. In the impossibly crammed space next to the al fresco cheese counter and the small shop, the hostess sets up rudimentary tables for guests (you sit on turned-over crates). There’s no menu: you are simply asked if you prefer eat, cheese or vegetable antipasta (or a combination thereof), and then whatever is fresh and ready that day comes out on an enormous board, complemented with a bread and servings of a vino della casa.

Only visitors seem to sit down; the locals who come stand around the cheesemonger or meat counter, sampling Panini stuffed with fresh ricotta, slices of mortadella or salami, or whatever else the family who runs the place—with gusto—shoves in their hands. Next door is a vegetable stand, across the street a flower vendor and further down a throng of market shoppers, making you feel like you have stumbled onto a Sicilian movie set.