Trattoria Archimede

No, pizza isn’t hard to find in Ortigia. Yes, Archimede has pizza. And their menu is in a thousand different languages, which is usually not a good sign.
But we went, anyway, and were shown to a patio out back that shared its space with other businesses as well as peoples’ houses. A nice, homey atmosphere, as a little kid amused himself by kicking an empty box around, a young couple played with their dog and the strains of cheesy lounge music from a nearby nightclub draped itself over the entire scene. Pure Sicilian outdoor life.
We sat at a table between two other parties: one a lovely German couple whom we saw on an airplane a few days later; and the other a dysfunctional English family of three, who — between endless questions (Is your pasta frozen? Don’t you have a Hawaiian pizza? You, know, with ham and pineapple? Exactly where are your tomatoes from?) and truly hurtful exchanges between mother and son as impotent Dad stared into space — managed never to ruffle the feathers of our ever-​patient waiter who seemed to know just the right words to say in 11 different languages.
The pizzas were good, of the overly-​cheesy-​and-​somewhat-​filling sort. I had to go for the gut-​busting (and excellent) Cyclops calzone, a combination of words that might confuse both monster and dish should one not be a mythcal invention and the other be able to comprehend language in its short span between creation and ingestion. My salad was just thrown together, a tableside version of a romp through the garden with bottles of oil & vinegar.
All in all, definitely worth going to if you’re in the neighborhood, traditional in that most elusive sense of being utterly without airs or the need to impress you with any more than a smile and a tasty plate of food.