Signum is the restaurant of chef Martina Caruso in the Signum Hotel on Salina, one of the Aeolian islands between Sicily and Naples, which has held a Michelin star from 2016.

The restaurant and hotel are only open in the summer season, and the outdoor seating offers a great view on the sea and the Stromboli volcano.

The restaurant offers a 9-course “Sigillo” tasting menu (190 euros) or 7-course “Oltremare” tasting menu (170 euros), as well as a 6-course vegetarian menu. There is a wine degustation of 6 Sicilian wines for 88 euros, or an international wine degustation of 7 wines for 140 euros. Upon request, the sommelier paired a different Sicilian wine for us with each dish.

We started with a 2021 Murgo Nerello Mascalese Metodo Classico Brut, aged 30 months on the lees. Very elegant with a nice aroma of cherries. I forgot to take a photo of the Benvenuto delle Cucina (welcome from the kitchen), which included a lot of classic flavors from the island.

Next was the best dish of the meal: ‘Bagnacauda’ of potatoes with fresh uni (sea urchin). Wow. Incredible and so delicious.

There was also various types of delicious bread, and butter with powdered capers from the island.

The final amuse bouche was a lemon granita with parsley and chilli pepper.

The wine for the first antipasto was a 2021 Beleda by Rallo, 100% Cataratto made in stainless steel. A very dry wine.

The first antipasto was carpaccio of ricciola (yellowtail, kingfish, amberjack, hamachi) with garum (fish sauce made from fermented anchovies) and herb oil. The dish was delicious with wonderful creamy and tender fish and great depth of flavor. The wine pairing worked at first, but left a bit of a bitter aftertaste.

Next was a Nero d’Avola rosé from Salina that had been bottled so recently that there was not yet a lable on the bottle.

It was a very good pairing for the raw red shrimp with ‘Bloody Mary’ and salted lemon. The dish brought out the fruit of the wine. The shrimp had excellent flavor and texture, and the salted lemon provided a great contrast.

The following wine was also from Salina, the 2022 Caravaglio Occhio di Terra, 100% Malvasia di Lapiri, with 10 days of skin maceration and 6 months of aging on the lees. Quite aromatic but also quite tannic because of the aging on the skin.

It was an acceptable pairing with the mackerel with pomegranate, leaves of capres and mint leaves. It worked very well with the mint, but became a bit tannic with the leaves of capres. The mackerel was announced as smoked, but the smoke flavor was very faint.

The wine for the first primo was a 2021 Eolia Bianco V, 100% Malvasia di Lipari from Salina, aged 12 months on the lees. It is not a surprise we are getting a lot of wines from Eolia, because that winery has the same owners as hotel and restaurant Signum.

It was an adequate pairing for the breaded Spatola (fish) with almonds and “leche de tigre”.

The next wine was a 2019 Ante Etna Bianco by I Custodi, Carricante 70%, Grecanico 15%, Minnella 15% from the Etna.

It was paired with the first primo: linguine pasta with almond cream and vongole. The creamy almonds were the dominant flavor of the dish, and the wine was chosen as a dry contrast to that.

The following wine was a 2012 Bianca di Valguarnera by Duca di Salaparuta from Sicily, 100% Inzolia, fermented and aged in French oak barriques on the lees for 8 months. Because of the older vintage, this wine also had a lot of bottle aging, but it was still very vibrant with nice creamy oak.

This was a good pairing for the fagottini (ravioli) of octopus with ‘nduja (soft spicy sausage from Calabria), lemon, and black olives. My favorite part of this dish was the piece of grilled octopus tentacle on top. The pasta was VERY al dente.

The wine for the next dish was a 2022 Susucaru Rosato by Frank Cornelissen from Sicily, a blend of Malvasia, Moscadella, Insolia, and Nerello Mascalese. Made with quite some skin contact, the wine was a bit like an orange wine.

This worked quite well as a pairing with the seared tuna and charred eggplant, but not so well with the tuna belly with green sauce. The eggplant was very tasty.

The sommelier first came up with a 2003 Nero d’Avola that was a very nice wine and that she wanted us to taste exactly because it was such a nice wine, but it did not work at all as a pairing for the red mullet (because that made the wine too astringent). And so she replaced it with the 2022 Eolia Bianco M, 80-90% Malvasia and the remainder Inzolia and Cataratto, aged for 7 months on the lees.

A very nice wine a good pairing for the red mullet by itself. The red mullet came with a very sweet tomato sauce and some very acidic pickles, which would be difficult to pair with any wine. The dish was called Triglia 5.0 (Red Mullet 5.0) and I don’t think I understood the point of it.

The pre-dessert was gelato of capers from the island, very nice.

The dessert wine was a 2013 Moscato dello Zucco by Cusumano, a Moscato from dried grapes from Sicily.

It was an adequate pairing with the creative rendition of a lemon meringue tart. A wine with more freshness would have worked even better.

The meal ended with some nice piccola pasticceria, including some very nice lemon-pistachio canoli.

It is clear why chef Martina Caruso holds a Michelin star and has been awarded multiple times (for example as best female chef or youngest chef to get a star). Some of the dishes were amazingly delicious. I did not love all of the dishes, but none were bad.

It was very nice that the sommelier improvised a wine pairing of only Sicilian wines for us, with even a lot of the wines from the island of Salina. The wines were all very nice and this was a great opportunity to get to know Sicilian wines. Although the pairings with the food were adequate, only a few were excellent. The wines tended to be on the very dry side (some edging towards orange wines), while most of the food would work best with more fruity or creamy wines.

The service was excellent and the location and view wonderful.

Signum is not easy to get to (first fly to Sicily, then drive to Milazzo for 1.5 hours, then take a ferry for almost 2 hours, followed by a 20 minute taxi ride to the other side of the island), but I’d certainly like to eat here again.