It’s like a picture of California: a dry coast, scorched grass, an indecent color of the sea – almost violet with flashes of emerald here and there.

And there’s a “tent” ashore with no windows, no doors, even no walls. It’s windy.

We come in.

There’re three men wearing gold watches.

“Ciao, ragazzi!” they say.

Obviously, they aren’t waiters, but they bring the menu. We sit down at an empty plastic table (they’re all empty so far), and they carefully wrap it in a paper cloth with a ship drawn on it.

They persist with plastic: glasses and plates, forks/spoons. The truth is that nothing would look here as harmoniously as plastic, into which they’ll soon put its antithesis.

It’s a kind of performance: the dead meets the living. Even though this “living” is totally dead and drawn out from the sea, all the same it’s more alive than any plastic could ever be. I guess this is the pictorial way the smart art dealers would describe the process, but these’re just some guys with intuition who want to save a little money.

To hell with the lyrics!

There’re urchins at 60 cents. Nobody orders less than “cinquanta” that means 50, just enough for a full tray. With seaweed and seawater.

Fish’s at 40eur a kilo. It can be of any kind, depending on what they’ve managed to catch today. Grill. Fucking delicious.

Pasta’s at 7-12eur. Fucking delicious squared.

Mussels, sarago, parago, carabinero prawns, octopus, vongole, urchins/urchins/urchins, spigola, orata, just shrimps, scampi, ruby Sicilian shrimps come at a burger price in MacDonald’s, but with the quality of a prototypical ideal shrimp if such a thing was present in the bureau of Weights and Measures.

By one a.m. the place is packed.

What’s been eaten will never be back – so you’d better come earlier.

Hey, do enjoy!