Cafe Bedda

Bedda continues to fly the flag for the distinctive food of Sicily from atop fashionable Rucker's Hill. A gleaming electric pizza oven is the engine driving this soulful operation, turning out bubbling slabs of goodness - perhaps the 'Etna' flowing with mozzarella, hot salami, roasted peppers and olives, or the 'Cicoria': chicory, asiago, lemon and black pepper on a white base. But pizza, whether to eat in or take away, is only half the story. Hemmed in by walls of canned tomatoes, packets of pasta and bottles of Italian sparkling water, the kitchen pumps out Sicilian delights such as crisp saffron-tinted arancini stuffed with molten mozzarella, tomato and peas; almond-studded cous cous with a soupy seafood stew; or tubular schiaffoni pasta with an orange and cinnamon-inflected lamb ragu - a reminder of the Arabic influence on this island cuisine. Locals tend to express their pleasure volubly in the checkerboard-floored room, especially once desserts arrive: perhaps cannoli filled with sweetened, lemon-scented ricotta and licked with chocolate.