Where should I eat in Siracusa, and which local food or drink is worth trying?

Siracusa's food day starts at the market on Via De Benedictis, in the Temple of Apollo's shadow: swordfish steaks like pink marble, tuna in season, sea urchins split to order, capers, Pachino's tomatoes, and the city's lemons — the Limone di Siracusa IGP is the coast's signature citrus (the Femminello siracusano, grown in the coastal groves since Arab times, supplies a major share of Italy's lemon harvest). The market's altar is the Caseificio Borderi, where the sandwich — a panino assembled from the family's cheeses, cured meats, sun-dried tomatoes and condiments, cut to your argument — has become a morning performance with a queue, generous free tastings while you wait, and a line of locals that validates it. Eat it on the harbor wall: that is brunch, Siracusa style.

The trattoria canon is Greek-harbor cooking: pesce spada (swordfish) alla ghiotta or in salmoriglio (the lemon-oregano-garlic oil of the strait), sarde a beccafico (sardines stuffed with breadcrumbs, pine nuts and orange), pasta alla siracusana with anchovies and toasted crumbs, tuna with mint and sweet-sour onions from the tonnara tradition of the coast (Marzamemi's, just south), and the stimpirata — the local sweet-and-sour fry of vegetables, sometimes fish, in the agrodolce the Arabs left. The island's dining rooms divide the honours: Don Camillo (on Via Maestranza since 1985, the creative flagship — book it), the Osteria da Carlo by the Apollonion for market cooking, Trattoria Archimede (a classic since 1938, off the island by the station quarter), and the seafront fry shops of the Lungomare for the cheap and perfect fritto misto. The granita is the afternoon law: lemon granita with a warm brioche col tuppo, eaten at the caffè tables of Piazza Duomo as the facade turns apricot.

The glass deserves its history. Moscato di Siracusa DOC (recognised 1973) descends from the wine the Greeks prized — the pollio of antiquity, made from Moscato Bianco grapes in the coastal hills — a golden dessert wine ('passito' versions raisined) of legendary age; it is among the least-known great names in Italian wine because its production is small and mostly drunk within Sicily. The red counterpoint is the Nero d'Avola of the Eloro country at the province's south (see the DOC shared with Noto). Finish sweet: the almond pastries of the pasticcerie (Siracusa keeps its own almond tradition alongside Avola's fame), cassata in spring, and the ricotta cannolo whose shell should shatter — filled to order, always, or not at all.

The Borderi counter at 11 a.m.: Mario layering a sandwich the size of a forearm, the queue tasting its way through three cheeses, and the Temple of Apollo standing in the sun outside the awning.

The market's best seat is the ritual itself: Borderi's queue moves slowly because the sandwich is theater — you will be fed tastes of everything while you wait, so arriving hungry but patient is the entire skill; go before 11 or accept the performance's length. The finer detail is the lemon: Siracusa's Femminello blooms up to four times a year (the verdello summer crop is the connoisseur's), which is why the granita here never has an off-season — and why the locals judge a bar by its lemon granita in January, not August.

• Market morning, island evening — Borderi and shopping by 11; the island's trattorie from 8, when Ortygia cools and fills
• Swordfish where the boats are — The harbor-side kitchens buy at dawn; the famous-name rooms book ahead, the fry shops do not
• Granita as a course, not a snack — Budget a full sit-down for it at Piazza Duomo; the facade's light show is included

Three frictions sit inside this answer. The market beside the Temple of Apollo is a morning trade that winds down well before lunch, so the sandwich, the sea urchins and the swordfish shopping all belong to the first hours of the day — and the famous counter's queue is slow by design on top of that. The wine is genuinely scarce, because the 1973 appellation's output is small and mostly drunk inside Sicily, so a list that cannot pour it is being honest rather than lazy and the province's red is the fallback. And Ortygia is a bridged island of lanes too narrow for comfortable driving, which makes the evening trattoria crawl a walking exercise and the parking a mainland problem solved before dinner, not after it.

Take the Borderi queue tomorrow morning, book Don Camillo for the splurge night, and order the Moscato di Siracusa wherever the list is honest enough to pour it.