Cave Ox, restaurant, pizzeria and wine cellar in Solicchiata

Cave Ox is Sandro Dibella's house in Solicchiata, the hamlet of Castiglione di Sicilia in the middle of the vineyards on Etna's north slope, on the road linking Linguaglossa with Randazzo. It presents itself as a place of wine, food and life on the land, and it has three parts: the kitchen, the cellar and some rooms. It is the place to eat after a tasting at the wineries in the area or a day on the north of the volcano, in a garden with lava-stone walls.

The house

The Dibella family ran the Grotta Bue bar, the village's historic bar. Sandro turned an old family palmento, the building where grapes were trodden, into the restaurant. The name comes from the Grotta del Bue, a lava cave his father bought. The cellar is part of the business: the wine list can be consulted on its website with a search function and filters, and it also has beers, spirits and digestifs.

What you eat

Seasonal Sicilian cooking, with Sicilian-grain bread, stone-ground flour, sourdough and a wood-fired oven. The menu published in November 2026 has antipasti such as truffle bruschetta (€12), rustic antipasto (€18) or the farmer's soup (€13). For first courses, fettuccine with cardoncelli mushrooms (€14), maccheroni al ragù (€16), fusilloni with Bronte pistachio (€18) or fettuccine with truffle (€24).

For main courses there is cod alla ghiotta (€22), grilled free-range chicken (€14), mixed grill (€17) and Etna veal bistecca, at €7 per 100 g, in cuts of 700 g to 1.2 kg. Side dishes run from €5.50 to €8, with wild greens and sautéed cardoncelli. The pizzeria works long-fermented doughs baked in a wood-fired oven, with its own menu of classic and special pizzas.

Hours, booking and getting there

It is open Wednesday to Sunday, from 12:00 to 15:00 and from 19:00 to 23:00; closed Monday and Tuesday. To book, call +39 0942 986171 or write on WhatsApp to +39 328 134 9683. It is on Via Nazionale, in the centre of Solicchiata.

From Catania, by car, allow a little under an hour on the motorway towards Messina and the 120 road. A few minutes away you have the tastings at the north-slope wineries, and Randazzo, with the Circumetnea train, is a quarter of an hour away. If you want to sleep here, Cave Ox has rooms with their own phone and email.