Snack crawl
The Skewer Crawl: Palermo
Start hungry and start early; the best stalls in Palermo sell out long before the guidebooks say they open.
- Stops
- 6
- Walking
- 8 km
- Budget
- Moderate
Before you set off
We recreated this one at home — see the recipe section — but it never tastes quite like it does on a kerb at midnight. Look for the place with the handwritten menu and the a Dutch oven that has clearly been in service for decades. Finish somewhere sweet. There is always room; it is a separate stomach. Stop 3 is a hole in the wall with four stools and a queue. Join the queue. The queue knows.
Finish somewhere sweet. There is always room; it is a separate stomach. Look for the place with the handwritten menu and the a box grater that has clearly been in service for decades. Start hungry and start early; the best stalls in Palermo sell out long before the guidebooks say they open. If you only have time for one stop, make it this one and order the thing everyone else is ordering.
Stop 8 is a hole in the wall with four stools and a queue. Join the queue. The queue knows. Order one portion between two at every stop. A crawl is a marathon made of sprints. If you only have time for one stop, make it this one and order the thing everyone else is ordering.
Stop 1: The bakery hatch near the fish market
We tested this 5 times in the Snack Crawl kitchen, and the version with curry leaves won every single round. Walk between stops. It is the only reason any of this is physically possible. Carry cash, tissues and a bottle of water. Thank us later. Order one portion between two at every stop. A crawl is a marathon made of sprints.
Carry cash, tissues and a bottle of water. Thank us later. Look for the place with the handwritten menu and the a box grater that has clearly been in service for decades. It is weeknight-friendly if you are organised and weekend-worthy if you are not.
Start hungry and start early; the best stalls in Palermo sell out long before the guidebooks say they open. Look for the place with the handwritten menu and the a box grater that has clearly been in service for decades. Order one portion between two at every stop. A crawl is a marathon made of sprints. Here the ginger is piled on with abandon and the chilli is not a suggestion.
Stop 2: The bakery hatch near the cathedral steps
Carry cash, tissues and a bottle of water. Thank us later. Start hungry and start early; the best stalls in Palermo sell out long before the guidebooks say they open. It looks like a project, but most of the work is waiting, and waiting pairs beautifully with a drink.
Tomasz, who runs our test kitchen on Thursdays, calls this “the one that ruins other snacks for you”. The owner, Aroha, has been folding these by hand for longer than we have been alive and has opinions about dried lime. We first ate something like this at a street stall in Palermo, balanced on a plastic stool, and spent the flight home reverse-engineering it.
There are snacks you eat standing at the counter, and then there are skewer — the kind you clear your evening for. We tested this 4 times in the Snack Crawl kitchen, and the version with coconut cream won every single round. Walk between stops. It is the only reason any of this is physically possible. We first ate something like this at a street stall in Palermo, balanced on a plastic stool, and spent the flight home reverse-engineering it.
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