A strong, penetrating flavour and lemon zest brightness ensures this visual masquerade from Sicily is a satisfyingly tasty treat

The Sicilian chef Corrado Assenza studied agronomy at the University of Bologna before returning to his home town of Noto and taking over his aunt’s patisserie shop and the land farmed by his grandparents. It turned out to be a productive collision: new knowledge meeting the empirical knowledge of a Sicilian pastry laboratory, and Corrado’s imaginative, wishful thinking. Like many people, we have visited his Caffè Sicilia and eaten almond granita and almond-and-sesame biscuits filled with bitter marmalade, and enjoyed bergamot cream, liquorice and wild fennel tea, as well as a ricotta-filled tube of cannoli decorated with a curl of candied orange.

I also had the chance to watch Corrado cook at a demonstration about citrus and honey at the Anna Tasca Lanza cooking school. He infused cream with bitter orange and mandarin to serve with almond cake; made pasta with anchovy and lemon, and topped it with breadcrumbs; braised artichokes with wild herbs; grilled sausage polpette between lemon leaves. But what I remember most was his rolling of a round egg frittata into u pisci d’ovu, or a “fish made of egg”.