We had a lovely stay in the quiet village of Arenella, just outside of Syracuse. The bikes were a god-send for getting to the beach (5 minutes on the bikes) when we would otherwise have had to pay for parking. A car is a necessity in this area though. Neither Arenella or Cassibile have restaurants for dinner (although we are slightly out of season visiting in June). There is an Aldi just on the outskirts of Syracuse though where we did our food shopping. Sadly the little restaurant in Arenella appears to have closed down.
We drove into Syracuse most evenings for dinner and it was no problem to park on the outskirts and walk a couple of minutes to the restaurant. We also did day trips to Taomina (1.5 hour drive), Noto (30 minutes drive) and Ragusa (1 hour drive) so it's a great spot to base yourself if you want to see the area.
We enjoyed our stay but would say there are some building works take place locally at the moment (they don't start until after 9am though) and the house is lovely but would benefit from air conditioning. You can get a lovely breeze through the house but once the mosquitos come out in the evening you'll want to close the windows!!
Overall we had a lovely stay - thank you for having us! Xx