There’s more to the city of romantic gondolas and clear blue waters.

We walk through Sicily’s mercato del pesce al minuto, or retail fish market. The fishmongers gather early in the morning, behind tables glistening with fish guts and brine and you’ll see the hugest variety of fish on display.

There are clams, including common vongole, cappe sante, or scallops, sold both in and out of the shell, schie – minuscule sweet gray shrimp from the Mediterranean, another kind of larger sweet-fleshed shrimp called mazzancolle, zotoleti – the tiniest of cuttlefish, several sizes of scampi – the delicate saltwater crayfish, exquisite little purple-red octopi known as moscardini, small mussels, two kinds of mullet: triglia di scoglio, long, dark gray eels; pescecane or dogfish, a small shark – prized for the flavour it lends to fish soups, passarini, literally ‘sparrows’ -little rounded sole-like fish, best fried and pagamei, which are usually boiled with seasonings, then passed through a food mill and stirred into risotto.

Chef Dario Dezio of Coreleone, the Intercontinental, Marine Drive where the seafood festival is currently on, explains: “Italy is a peninsula surrounded by water, so seafood is abundant; in fact, seafood is regarded as an obsession there.“

And as with all of their ingredients, Italians demand absolute freshness for their seafood.

“Everything must be so,” affirms chef Dezio, adding, “The only things you don’t want to eat very fresh are the cephalopods - squid, cuttlefish, octopus - which are always better after two or three days.”

The little scampi are made in mayonnaise, served with served with cold pressed extra virgin olive oil, garlic, lime and black pepper.

The prawns are served fresh in a traditional Ligurian sauce. The chargrilled calamari is best had with pate and black olives with a dressing of Italian herbs, while the shark fish best had roasted, one learns.

The food is also perfectly complemented by wine, affirms chef Anirudhya Roy, executive chef Taj Lands End.

"Like love and marriage, Italian food and wine make the perfect match. They enhance flavours, bringing out the best in each other. Italian seafood is also quite popular and can prove to be very light and healthy,” ends chef Roy.