One dish: paccheri, saffron, and pistachios from Bronte

Some dishes are worth explaining before you order them, because the menu line does not do them justice. Paccheri Zafferano e Pistacchio is one of those.

The shape

Paccheri are big smooth tubes, wide enough to collapse slightly under their own weight when you lift them. They are not a subtle shape and they are not supposed to be. A cream sauce gets inside them, which is the entire reason to use them here.

The gold

Saffron is the most expensive spice in the world by weight, for a fairly boring reason: it is the stigma of a crocus flower, three per flower, and they are picked by hand. It takes a great many flowers to season a single pan.

What it gives you is not really a flavour in the way pepper is a flavour. It is closer to a smell that has learned to sit on your tongue, faintly of hay and honey, and a colour that no other ingredient can fake.

The green

The pistachio pesto is made with pistachios from Bronte, a town on the slopes of Etna in Sicily. The nuts grow in volcanic soil, they are harvested every other year, and they are darker, greener and sweeter than a standard pistachio. In Sicily they turn up in savoury cooking as readily as in dessert, which is exactly what this dish is borrowing from.

Against the saffron cream it does two jobs at once. It cuts the richness, and it puts a second colour on the plate.

What to drink with it

Something white with enough body to stand next to cream, or ask whoever is behind the bar. That is what they are there for.