Dining in Naples & Capri Next Week!

[andrearode]

I'm leaving for an 8-day vacation to Naples and Capri next week. I will be in Naples for 4 days and Capri for the remaining 3. I would love any recommendations of where to eat, drink, nightlife, gelato, etc. The only reservation we have is at L'Olivio at the Capri Palace Resort one night. Budget is not an option, just simply looking for the best. Thanks.

[cococustard]

In Naples...

Da Michele's is really good for authentic margherita pizza. Get the double (comes with extra mozzarella). Only about 4.50 euros for a huge (12'') personal pizza.

An very famous, traditional bakery that specializes in sfogliatella (pastry with ricotta cheese and orange water) is on Via Tribunali.. it has a green awning. I can't remember the name, but it's quite fancy and you can't miss it. They even have seating across the cobblestoned road.

I was on a student budget in Italy, so that's about all the recommendations I can offer. I know of one other restaurant on Via Tribunali on the south side, but I can't remember its name, unfortunately. They did have really good gnocchi alla sorrentina, a dish which you can try in many restaurants. It's gnocchi with cheesy tomato sauce! Yum :) They also had incredible panna cotta with a burnt caramel sauce on top. I recall the restaurant is listed in the Let's Go! Italy guide, so if you get your hands on that, you're in luck.

Have a great trip! Naples is INCREDIBLE - authentic Italy!! Just be careful and keep your wits about you.

[glbtrtr]

Just back from Naples and many restaurants are closed during August. It was very hot and we wanted to eat outdoors a lot. Best pizza was a chowhounder recommendation to go to Starita on the metro to the Materdei station and then follow the signs for a few blocks to the restaurant.

This like many pizza restaurants are casual so it is hard to think any of them as "price is no object" type places. We also arrived right at evening opening at 7:30pm and got a table. Very quickly after that time there were people waiting out in the street, which we found the case in other popular areas if you are going without recommendations.

The Ciro's at Mergellina place for pizza appears to the the "best" at any price type pizza place, but had not tried it myself.

Scaturcchio's (many locations) is known to be best for their characteristic flaky sfolligiatella pastry but I liked the ones I just bought from the street seller's better along Spaccanapoli.

Best gelato was Scimmi's which you can find in several places. But the best home made gelato we had was a little place near Arena Flegrea and the Augusto metro stop, but you would have no reason to go out that way on such short time in the city.

There is some bad gelato so pick carefully. One on Via Tribunali was full of air, lightweight, bad cone and had no flavor but it touted itself as one of Naple's best. We had to go back to Scimmi's for a second cone to make up for that bad one before we toured the Naples Underground, which was a very interesting tour during the heat of the day, again off Via Tribunali.

Two retaurants with good reviews in Naples that we did not get a chance to try but looked very inviting are Mimi's al Ferrovia near the trainstation in a slightly ratty part of town but this place looked very lovely and Europeo just off Piazza Bonivo. Both seem to be favorites of locals in the know.

My favorite place now and favorite Naples Bay island is Procida where you can find this incredible restaurant in a lemon grove and gardens -Scarabeo on Via Salette and there are also very good reviews also for La Pergola on the same wonderful little island still pretty much removed from the tourist craziness of Capri.

Procida is a half hour boat ride from Naples on the highspeed boats or a quicker trip if you visit Ischia. Then it is a longish walk through wonderful country side or a taxi ride to either restaurant. Superb lemoncello at Scarabeo's and the antipasto and insalata di mare were worth the day trip as well. Do think about visiting this island during your time in Naples, particularly if the weather and crowds get you down.

Procida is clean and grafitti free, both of which can overwhelm one in Naples itself until it finally becomes part of the background wallpaper for this richly historic and artistic city with its eyepopping architecture and deep visual appeal with almost every street and alley.

But you will need to check out all these restuarants once you get there to see if they are closed for your time in August.

Lines too long at da Michele and others also well known were closed. Not so great pizza at Sobrillos's (sp?) on Via Tribunali. On a prior trip we did enjoy the pizza at Brandi's off Via Chiaia. Vomero and the Chiaia districts are so lovely in Naples and there are lots of restaurants to try in both these districts.

We loved the historic center and could walk for hours and eat from small places for snacks. Every few blocks in the 90 plus degree whether seemed like just the right time for another limone granite. But for gentility and a far cleaner, quieter, greener and more elegant side to Naples, then it is Chiaia for the best dining and shopping choices. Posillipo also has some garden restaurants in a very elegant residential area with sweeping view as well. We tried Rosiella's there on Via Posillipo which has a lovely outdoor setting and had a lovely meal there with excellent lemoncello.

Our last night we wanted to be outdoors with a view and a Naple's "scene" so we went to La Schiluppa in the Santa Lucia harbor area and had wonderful antipasto there along with a tasty pasta and fish, even though all the restaurants in this area have heavy tourist impact sometimes you just gotta "do" Naples with the strolling serenaders and all the canned Neapolitan schmaltz -- this was certainly the place. If I were to do it again, I would have ordered two antipasto's de casa there. Or maybe even three.

[erica]

Search the listings here; there have been MANY reports about eating in Naples, including my own from 2008.

For pizza we loved Sorbillo.

For sfogliatelle: Sfogliatelle Mary or Scaturchio

[jen kalb]

Erica, explain which pastries are good at Scaturchio - I know there are preferred types.

[Indy 67]

Not Erica, but here's my take on the one pastry my husband and I ate there: the soft sfogliatelle.

I loved the not-too-sweet filling along with the distinct contrast between the ricotta and the orange rind bits. However, we chose the soft version that uses a dough somewhere between a Danish and a sweet brioche. Later, my husband and I tried the hard version, one in which leaves of dough -- phyllo-like -- are artfully overlapped and baked to crispness. (This hard version was at Cafe Gambrinus. I didn't care for this versions' overly sweet, homogenized filling, but the contrast between the crunch of the crust and the ooze of the filling was sublime.) My husband, who likes things sweeter than I do, preferred the version from Gambrinus, but his compliments were mostly directed towards the crust. My preference for the Scaturchio version was mostly focused on the filling. Scaturchio offered the hard-crust version, and I would definitely get this next time we visit Naples.

[erica]

I had NO IDEA that there were different types of sfogliatelle! I had only those encased with soft layers of dough. I just about fell down in a swoon the first time I had one at Mary. Honestly, I used to think that I was not a fan of "Italian" pastry. That was because I'd never had any that came close to those I had in Naples.

[jen kalb]

thats funny, because all the sfogliatelle in NY has the filo like leaves - I have never seen it with the softer pasta frolla. I walked into Scaturchio the day of my arrival in Naples in 2007 - wasnt really hungry - and walked out without even trying these!

[erica]

Jen: I think my use of the word "soft" is confusing. They were, indeed, filo-like leaves but there was more crunch than in, for example, spanakopita. So a small crunch when I bit in, but not a snap. Sorry to confuse the issue even more! You will just have to investigate when you return to Naples! Again, both of us almost fell right down in the street after one bite.

[zerlina]

I've tried twice (unsuccessfully) to attach photos of the two kinds of sfogliatelle. If you use Google Images, you'll see both: the more common version with pasta sfoglia, the filo-like leaves, and the one with pasta frolla that I would describe as more like a pate brisee than a brioche dough.

[Indy 67]

Interesting. I think of pate brisee as having a flakey texture. I think of pasta frolla as have a somewhat crumbly texture like shortbread. Scaturchio's soft version wasn't flakey or crumbly like either of these suggestions. I'm right back at my intial comparison to brioche.

I used a different search engine to locate images of the two types of pastry. Below, you'll find a link to the phyllo style. I never did find a photo of the "brioche" style. (Ignore the arancini included on the right on the photo.)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/blue_fin...

[jen kalb]

Heres some good info, pics and even some new (to me) recommendations of where to buy in naples from Gina DePalma
Maybe I will have a chance to give them a try.

http://www.seriouseats.com/2008/06/sn...

[Indy 67]

Thanks Jen! The article was charming and the pictures are great.

Italy isn't on our horizon for 2010, but seeing that photo is giving me serious withdrawal symptoms. Recently, my husband and I had dinner in the most authentically Italian restaurant we've encountered in the US. The restaurant, Trattoria Nostrani, is located in Santa Fe and I can't recommend it highly enough. The attitude of the chef is totally in synch with the cooking we get in Italy: source the best ingredients and cook them skillfully and simply to let the ingredients shine. (We don't live anywhere near Santa Fe, but at least it's a shorter trip than a trans-Atlantic flight.)

I'll just have to content myself with eating vicariously through Chowhound until our next trip to Italy, presumably in 2011. My husband and I are determined to make it to the Venice Biennale so that's another reason to wait until the odd year. (Insanely, our last visit to Venice ended on the day the Biennale began.)

[andrearode]

Thank you all for the recommendations so far - these are great. Keep them coming.
Are there any seafood restaurants we should aim to dine at?

[glbtrtr]

Da Doro in Chiaia gets the consistently best reviews for seafood and it is nicely pricey. But again be sure to check to see if it closes in August.

[jen kalb]

andrearode, looking forward to your trip report!

[toitoi]

In Capri, ate here last year - wonderful

http://www.lacanzonedelmare.com/en/index