In the Kingdom of Heaven: Palermo

Our Journey Begins...

Palermo: a city of baroque splendor.  This city, unlike any other in Italy, captures the imagination with the feeling of an inescapable history, a siren of a lost era whose swan song is one of inescapable loveliness and indolent luxury.  The capital of the island of Sicily, Palermo witnessed the successive rule of the great Mediterranean empires; the tastes and cultures of the Arabs, Normans, Spanish, Bourbons & Neapolitans influenced Palermo’s wholly unique identity.    

For years it had been this vision of Palermo which held us transfixed. Its history, one where the middle ages are as vivid as the baroque, its teeming markets, it palaces, cathedrals, and convents, and naturally, its sublime food. Fresh fish, red tomatoes, peppers, aubergines, and capers: theses are the ingredients to a perfect meal. And atop all this are the sweets. No place in Italy is more famous for its dolci then Sicily, with sugared pilgrims streaming into the city to sample cannoli, cassata, and other rich ricotta delights, alongside an inexhaustible range of gelati (lush ice cream hand held in buttery brioche) and perfect miniatures of a fruit sculpted in tinted marzipan. Let the angles sing for the glory and mystery of the Sicilian kitche

Beyond our selfish pleasures we had other reasons to visit Palermo.  A new project!  A new Palladio!  A caffé inspired from the flavors and cultures of Sicily, and what a delicious place it is!

With stomachs fit to bursting and heads spinning with visions of sugar plums, where did we lay our head, where did we dream?  Set within a garden of unimaginable beauty, a garden of parched scents, of jasmine and palms, of vivid bougainvillea, banyans, and oranges, lies Villa Tasca, a scene from the fevered fantasies we always held of Palermo.

"At Villa Tasca, I knew the full beauty, the noble and peaceful splendor, of Palermo's pure and immense light”

This neoclassical villa was to be our home.  With its panorama of wild gardens and its lofty salons with their silk wallpapers, with Murano chandeliers and frescoed ceilings, we were enchanted.  Never has a feeling of stepping into the past felt so complete, so perfectly at home.  Otto von Bismark, Giuseppe Verdi,  Niccolò Paganini, Richard Wagner all slept and studied, imagined, relaxed, and created in these same rooms.

And imagine you wake up in these beautiful rooms, with a morning breeze and soft sun streaming though the open windows, and you whisper to yourself, still half way in a dream “This is Palermo?”