Il Molo – A Dining Experience in Vicenza

Il Molo, or The Pier, has great seafood with Sicilian Flavours:

Baked sardines with breaded cheese

After three weeks of travelling in northern Italy, we were looking forward to a change away from ‘traditional Italian cuisine’. When we arrived in Vicenza, Tony did some research and Il Molo was one of the restaurants that had good reviews. Il Molo, or The Pier, is a seafood restaurant, with modern cooking style and flavours from Sicily – it sounded like something that we would enjoy.

An Interesting Restaurant Style

Il Molo is a very popular Vicenza restaurant and we didn’t get in on a Friday night, but we managed to secure a booking for the following evening. The restaurant does not have a menu that you can look up before-hand to decide what food you’d fancy for the evening. They do not have a big menu but it changes from day to day, although I suspect a few of the more popular dishes get rotated.

Tony enjoying his entree

After being seated and ordering a drink, the maitre’d comes to our table and recites what’s on offer that evening. Giovanni goes through the menu with such gusto – and he does this at every table throughout the evening. I enjoyed listening to him doing his routine that half way through I lose concentration on what food he was rattling off. I tried stealing a shot of him doing his recitation, but I it came out crooked and didn’t pass Tony’s approval.

What we had

We started our meal with a Sicilian sparkling wine which I didn’t like as much as the Veneto prosecco. Tony tried the white wines from Sicily and they were okay.

Spaghetti with prawns and asparagus

For our starter, Tony ordered the courgette stuffed with prawns, porcini and other ingredients and I had the baked sardine stuffed with a mixture of bread crumbs, cheese, mushrooms and herbs.
Of the two starters, mine had a stronger flavour, although I did enjoy tasting the fresh flavour of the courgette that Tony had.

For our primi piatti, we shared a plate of wheat-based spaghetti with prawns and asparagus. Good thing Tony had read online that the pasta dishes are large. If you find yourself dining at Il Molo, the recommendation is to share a pasta between two people. The restaurant is fine with serving two half plates as they appreciate that diners want to taste different dishes. The pasta was very tasty and the diced prawns tasted very fresh. Although I usually don’t manage to finish my pasta, this evening I ate every strand of my spaghetti.

For our main course we ordered the swordfish which is stuffed with a breaded cheese filling. The serving included two skewers with three pieces of fish each. I’m glad that we shared this as well. It was delicious, but very rich. I didn’t finish my share of the fish, tasty as it was.

Skewer of swordfish

Best meal of our trip

Of the many restaurants that we’ve dined at in Italy, this would have to be one of our most enjoyable meals so far. The cooking style is interesting and the ingredients are fresh. On top of this, the guys who run the place (Ennio and Giovanni) are very friendly and were great hosts.

Although you have to go on trust, if you like seafood, there’s bound to be dishes that you would enjoy.

Address:
Il Moro
Contrà Pedemuro S. Biagio, 48
36100 Vicenza VI, Italy

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