Italy’s southern island of Sicily is a huge 10-million-square-mile chunk of volcanic land in the Mediterranean with a population of five million. But off its northwestern coast are three small Aegadian islands, 175 miles from Tunis, of which the largest, Favignana, is less than three miles at its widest point, with a population of just over 4,000 people. The only way to get there is by boat, 11 miles from the Sicilian town of Trapani, so, although it gets tourists during the season, it is still a largely unfamiliar, craggy, cave-pocked and reclusive place, where peace and quiet is the rule and the beaches are relatively barren.
       Four strong winds blow through Favignana—the Mistral from the northwest, the Sirocco from the southeast, the Greco from the northeast and the Libyan from the southwest—whose name comes from a fishing net called the levanzo.
       It is not home to chain hotels or golf courses, and the colorful wooden boats in the harbor are owned by fishermen for whom the tuna industry is a sustaining tonnara tradition that awaits the bluefins’ arrival and their mass capture called the mattanza that occurs May through June. The canning industry was created there by Vincenzo Florio, better known as the Marsala wine producer, and built up at a factory on the island by Ignazio Florio, at one time employing 800 men and women, while the island’s nuns tended their children.
      Today the processing and canning occurs in nearby Trapani, and tuna yields are not what they once were. You can still visit the vast pink sand-colored processing plant (left and right) with its fine lancet archways and towers, where enormous amounts of fish were prepared for canning, and if you’re lucky, you may find an old-timer still singing the old dialect tributes to the tuna while they were being fished.
    During World War II, as the story goes, Gen. Patton’s invasion of Sicily caused him to send two officers on an expedition to each of the Aegadian islands in a fishing boat they bought for three dollars. Once they were onshore Favignana the Italian Lt. Colonel there was only too happy to surrender the islands to the Americans.
     To get to Favignana you take the Liberty Lines hydrofoil ferry out of Trapani, a half-hour trip (about $25 round-trip). You slow down and glide into the boat-packed harbor, and when you disembark head for the café right there on the docks and order their specialty, a delicious espresso with pistachio cream (which you can purchase there or at any good Italian grocery).  Since no one brings a car to the island, you can walk around the town in a leisurely morning or rent a bike at the docks—there’s a big green sign reading “RENT”—for about $12 a day, or find older bikes for half that price.
      Bikes will be necessary to visit one of Favignana’s several beaches, including Cala Rossa, perhaps the most crowded, and Bue Marino, among the rocks and caves with a food truck selling tuna sandwiches. You can also hire boat guides to sail you around the island. The beaches, despite all the rocky surroundings, can have more fine sand than many stony strands in the Mediterranean and the views of the mountains and other islands are wonderfully calming.
     Downtown, if you wish to call something so small and compact a downtown, has the sun-bleached buildings of the southern Mediterranean and the usual oversupply of churches, along with the 19th century Villa Florio (right), now a museum of local history. The island offers a slew of B&Bs, many on or near the beach, like La Praya 5, currently renting for $166 per night, with breakfast. The new  Cave Garden Rooms (right) are set dramatically right over the caves, for $178.
    

    Brand new is stylishly appointed Calamoni di Favignana apartments, beautifully laid out right next to the Firriato family vineyards and a short walk to the lapping sea. With one- and two-bedroom apartments and villas, prices start around $1,000 a night.
      There are plenty of good, causal trattorias on the island, all with seafood-based menus. The extremely popular, quaintly named Quello Che C’e C’e (left) on the Via Garibaldi, which roughly translates to “It is what it is,” is always packed during the season, and the outdoor tables are sought out and occupied early, but meals move fast. Pastas run about $15, main courses around $25. The focaccia is irresistible.
      I had a splendid, very convivial meal at the family owned Trattoria del Pescador (right), the town’s oldest, since 1974, set on the Piazza Europa. It’s rustic and folkloric and very pretty, and you will be greeted by the owner Rino, who will bring out a platter with a variety of the day’s catch, which will then be prepared by his wife Rosa. In every bite of her food there is the briny taste of the Mediterranean. The food is not fussy but simply lustrous and the dishes abundant and meant to be shared.
      We started with some antipasti, then a pasta with mildly flavorful bottarga roe and another with small, tender clams in the shell. There was also freshly made busiate noodles, whose hole in the middle of the long strands is made with a knitting needle. A lustrous sarago (bream) was dressed in a salmoriglio sauce of oil, pepper and lemon, and preo (dentice) was simply grilled and meaty. Pasta run $14-$27; main courses $17-$33, with some fish sold by the grams.
     With the meal we drank a Firriato Favinia 2012 made from Nero d’Avola grapes and after dinner a raisin-like Passitio 2015 from the same producer.  You can skip the cloyingly sweet cassata cake for dessert.
      At late afternoon we were back on the ferry, cutting through choppy water, and as Favignana receded in the distance, it seemed to return to the sea like a sprite awaiting the sunset.

         The Upper West Side, which the New York food media almost completely ignores, has long been fertile ground for storefront restaurants of every stripe, block by block, sometimes two or three on each block. Tasca, which occupies a two-level, 5,500-square-foot space, is an exciting new addition near the Museum of Natural History. It is highly innovative in that the menu has combined the flavors of Iberia—tasca means tavern—not just Spain and Portugal but also the Latin countries of the Caribbean: Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Cuba. And it’s all done with admirable color and dash.
      In fact, I’ve found the seasoning and spicing at Tasca wonderfully elevated from the way I’ve experienced much of the cooking of Latin countries, where the array of spices varies greatly. In Spain, garlic is used sparingly—the exceptions are garlic soup, shrimp or angulas à la bilbaina, eels served in bubbling garlic oil—and hot chili peppers are rare. Indeed, in Penelope Casas’s excellent Delicioso! The Regional Cooking of Spain (1996) chilies are not mentioned at all; neither are they in Memories of a Cuban Kitchen (1992) by Mary Urrutia Randelman and Joan Schwartz. And a recipe for the classic Dominican Republic dish called pollo guisado,in the on-line Dominican Cooking, contains only a half-teaspoon of garlic and the festive dish sancocho but one teaspoon.  At Tasca, a wide range of ingredients are used to heighten and brighten every dish while respecting the fundamentals of the food culture that produced it.
     Tasca’s owners, Jay, Norisa and their son Justin Espinal, took over the all-white-and-blue premises of a Greek restaurant named Kefi, and turned it to look more like a Spanish tavern, with a wine cellar downstairs. The arched passage from the bar to the main dining room is complemented by a striking latticework on high ceilings, with a lovely mural of Caribbean flora and fauna. Lighting is good and the noise level not bad, depending on the vocal power of the people at other tables.
      Consulting chef René Hernandez trained at El Bulli with Ferran Adrià, with Tasca’s head chef, Rufino Peralta, exhibiting the less-extravagant side of modernism, as seen in the dozen or so tapas, including vieras (diver’s scallops) crusted with cassava and served with a green fava bean compote ($17); a special of scallops over spiced mango and pineapple relish with Caribbean herb emulsion and a squid ink vinaigrette ($17). Grilled octopus is served with Peruvian potatoes and a mojo Gallego sauce ($21), while setas (wild mushrooms) and gambas (shrimp) come with a vibrant salsa azafran in a garlic-rich saffron broth ($19). You really cannot miss the unusual croquettes (left) of sweet plantains with tangy sun-dried tomato slaw, lime zest and grated manchego cheese to give them a creamy dairy accent ($14). There is also a prettily composed remolacha salad of roasted beets, smoked goat’s cheese, Caribbean pesto and popped wild race ($14), the kind of dish that would be very rare to find in the Caribbean.
     The main plates may be shared, which adds to the fun of an evening at Tasca. Lomo de cerdo is grilled pork tenderloin fillet, very tender, with a deep, dark black bean purée and a jalapeño salad ($29).  Goat’s cheese buoys many a dish on the menu to good effect, as in the magret de pato of spice-rubbed duck paired with sweet plantain and Zinfandel-soaked goat cheese ($35). The grilled skirt steak called churrasco has plenty of deep beefy flavor and a nice chewiness, sided by fat yucca fries, Caribbean mojo sauce and hot chimichurri ($32).
     There are two representative paellas on the menu, a classic Spanish Valenciana ($62 for two) and fideua, made with thin spaghetti rather than rice ($58 for two), both of which are easy enough for a table to dig into and search the bottom for the crispy bits called socarrat.  I must admit I’m of two minds about paella. On the one hand it’s a festive, savory, steaming dish brought to the table in its shallow pan; on the other hand, it’s not so different from so many other countries’ rice and seafood renderings, and, having eaten it several times in Valencia, I’ve always found it somewhat bland. Tasca’s is somewhat better seasoned, but it’s not a stand-out among so many dishes that are.
     Generous desserts stay on the traditional side, like the coconut tres leches cake, suffused with sweet condensed caramel, and pudin de pan banana bread pudding with a luscious rum raisin glaze.
        The Espinals have cellared a terrific wine list, largely from Latin countries, with plenty of very good labels under $60. Wines by the glass run $12-$18, and there’s not a clunker among the selections. They also offer specialty cocktails, of which the City of Gold made with tequila, orange, honey and chili pepper seasoning ($16) is a winner. There is also an admirable list of more than 100 rums.
       On the Upper West Side there are plenty of good but unadventurous eateries, so it’s good to see the Espinals going a long Latin mile to be unique among the rest. For this Tasca is not just one of the best new places in that neck of the woods but one of the most enticing of its kind anywhere in the city right now.

Tasca is open for dinner nightly and for brunch Sat. & Sun.