My maxim for finding non-touristy restaurants with awesome vibes in unfamiliar cities: font equals foodie.
I’m drawn to cool, edgy, artsy font or typeface in restaurant signage. So far, in the eleven years since I embarked on my first solo trip, this restaurant reconnaissance strategy has never failed. Here’s how it usually unfolds: I begin most travel explorations eating at places recommended by friends or locals. But during my first few days ambling avenues and alleys alone, I inevitably notice interesting lettering styles imprinting restaurant placards, glass windows, and awnings—identifiers of dining spots not necessarily featured in the standard guidebooks, travel blogs, or popular hit lists. I snap photos of these thoughtful design choices, planning to investigate further later. I do. I scan poetic menu descriptions. I size up ambiance, noise, crowdedness, waiter friendliness…picky stuff like, “Do the napkins look soft…like, Egyptian cotton-y? Is pottery involved?” If the answers to the latter two questions are yes and yes, I definitely sit. And, not to be overly dramatic but…I inevitably pump my fist in the air at my table-for-one when the lovely server pivots to tend to another patron because—once again—the font phenomenon worked. The aesthetic textual choice—which might not seem like a big deal but it so is— by the brilliant restauranteur or chef or marketing consultant or owner’s Gen Z niece or other graphic genius on the team has led me to another treasure trove of fresh, foodie, farm-to-table-y ingredients exploding like fireworks on my plate and palate.
But first, let’s back up a second—for context.
Let’s use Napoli as Exhibit A to font equals foodie for a solo traveler like me.
When my teaching semester ended in May, I made a commitment to myself to spend four weeks in Naples, Italy—solo. Writing every day. Speaking only Italian. Exploring. Eating. Exercising—to counterbalance the daily caloric uptick from indulgence in red wine and carb-a-palooza.
Of course, my first few days in Naples, I did what every newbie should do: Stuffed my face with seafood. Pizza. Pasta. Pastries like babà (a spongy cake of Polish and French provenance soaked in rum and shaped, um, like a phallus). Flavors of sorbetto like basilimone (basil + lemon!). A traditional street cart drink provocatively called limonata a cosce aperte, “lemonade with open thighs,” so-named because the concoction of fresh-squeezed lemon juice, sparkling water, and a pinch of baking soda bubbles up like Mount Vesuvio and spills all over your pants and shoes if you don’t spread your legs as you sip it!
I ate good meals at the super-hyped traditional venues, and spots I discovered out of sheer hunger while wandering. But soon, a familiar urge to venture beyond the predictable began to percolate. In my daily outings—folding into neighborhood dioramas, absorbing cultural and artistic nuances, scaling gradinata (graffitied staircases connecting different levels of Naples’ topography)—my nerdy logophile brain noticed words and their fonts. My foodie fascination with fonts led me to a different layer of cucina napoletana: culinary and interpersonal experiences I would have completely missed if I’d stuck to the popular norm or the well-trod path.
Here’s how it all evolved.
Seafood
Antica Pizzeria Da Pasqualino (Piazza Sannazaro, 79)
Vibe: I had literally just alighted from the train (Rome to Naples), found my Airbnb on the Pallonetto Santa Lucia hill, dumped my bags…quick shower…then a slow passeggiata along the Lungomare (the Bay of Naples) to get my bearings and find a (relatively) non-touristy place for lunch. At the northernmost edge of the Lungomare’s curve, I veered inland, and within five minutes reached Piazza Sannazaro (named after a poet). Starving at this point, I wasn’t feeling super-choosy, but noticed a trattoria with interesting wall tiles and a yellow-and-brown terracotta sign certifying that Antica Pizzeria had been in business since 1898! Embedded in the same placard: a ceramic depiction of Vesuvius, four vertical marks resembling exclamation points (an orthographic nod to erupting lava?) painted above the volcano’s summit. (I am queen of exclamation points.) A friendly waiter greeted me and ushered me to an outdoor table amid fishermen and two mermaid-esque Napoletano ladies.
My Meal: Not yet in the mood for pizza (which everyone else was eating), I ordered the pesce misto alla griglia (mixed grilled fish): swordfish, two giant shrimp, calamari. Giant chunks of lemon. Delicious.
Server: I loved interacting with Sal, my server. Part of my quest when I travel in Italy is to improve my Italian, so I get a little bummed when waiters immediately shift to English when they hear my accent or I mess up a basic phrase. Sal patiently communicated with me in Italian, even teaching me phrases in Napoletano. He made my first meal in Naples magical, complete with a love song 100% due to my linguistic blunder: He asked what I was writing in my journal. I responded with le memorie, intending memories (but I should have replied, i ricordi). He thought I said l’amore, dropped to a knee, and burst into song.
Taverna e Pizzeria Giulia (Via Posillipo, 239) (Posillipo: from the ancient Greek pausilypon, meaning respite from worry or pause from trouble)
Vibe: One morning after a writing session, I set off on an overly ambitious walk/hike north along the Lungomare to a Naples neighborhood called Posillipo. The area is known for private beaches—Bagno Elena and Bagno Sirena—where sunseekers rent lounge chairs and umbrellas. I got a little lost. I’m Nallegam—Magellan’s perpetually geographically disoriented twin—kind of ironic for a travel memoirist. (Or maybe…metaphorically on brand?) Trying to find either a public access beach at sea level or a panoramic vista from an upper ridge, I kept accidentally trespassing on private hillside passageways and having to backtrack at locked gates. Hot and starving but relieved to finally reach the Lungomare again, I wasn’t sure where to eat. I crisscrossed Piazza San Luigi (a roundabout named for a saint, yielding a beautiful sea view) twice, scanning restaurant awnings for interesting names and specialties, paralyzed with indecision. Two servers at Taverna e Pizzeria Giulia greeted me twice with peppy duets of buongiorno. They didn’t thrust English menus at me like the other establishments (a recruiting technique which has the opposite effect on me). I glanced at their patio: market umbrellas offering shade, cute geranium planters, uncrowded. (Introvert heaven.) It felt welcoming, breezy, and unchaotic. I sat.
My Meal: No menu! In Italian, the server described a variety of pizza options, but when I expressed interest in seafood, he taught me a new word—astice. European lobster—different from aragosta (Mediterranean lobster). I hadn’t had lobster in ages so I said yes. I also requested a side order of friarielli—Naples’ version of broccoli rabe (and a tongue-twister to pronounce all the vowels correctly). The astice arrived on a bed of perfectly cooked spaghetti in a colorful sauce of yellow and red cherry tomatoes. Mouth-wateringly epic.
Servers: Lovely, friendly, patient, happy I enjoyed their food. (I even got a hug from the chef!)
AND NOW FOR THE FONT!
O’ Paravisiello (Via Speranzella, 29/30) (Speranzella: derived from Italian for speranza, hope, the suffix ella implying “a little hope” or “a small hope”)
Font/Vibe: For days I’d been roving the Quartieri Spagnoli (so named because the area housed Spanish troops during the Spanish Empire’s dominion over Naples in the 16th century). Mesmerized, meandering mazes of narrow streets peppered with shrines to soccer star Diego Maradona and Napoletano families’ beloved relatives who’d passed away, I kept landing at the same corner. Trying not to get flattened by motorbikes zigging and zagging multiple directions down, up, and across the linguini-thin alley, I pressed my body against a whitewashed wooden table topped with linens in Napoli-blue (a specific shade of azzurro, like the sea) and white stripes. The restaurant’s cheerful font and logo caught my eye: a round Napoli-blue sign with the restaurant name (derived from the Napoletano word paraviso, meaning paradise, ello converting it to “little paradise”). The font letters were skinny, all caps, with lowercase trattoria napoletano printed below the restaurant name. A yellow branding image resembled either a puffy chef’s toque hat or surrealist bread dough rising from a castle tower. Lively music pumped from a boom box competing with already boisterous street clamor—motorbikes, men chatting in rapid-fire Napoletano dialect, hand gestures punctuating each point and counterpoint. Pure positive upbeat passionate energy. Not a relaxing meal at all, but genuine—the heartbeat of authentic Napoli vibrating everything.
My Meal: Grilled calamari; a side dish of friarielli; pillowy home-baked bread; food delivered on white oblong pottery with blue edges; napkins bearing the font and logo.
Servers: Attentive, tried to speak English with me at first but graciously switched to Italian when I said, Devo practicare (I need to practice), very busy dealing with street chaos and trying to attract more patrons, but incredibly friendly to everyone.
Pizza
Touristy/Famous
L’Antica Pizzeria da Michele (Via Cesare Sersale, 1)
Vibe: One day, I found myself in Pendino, a section of Centro Storico (the historic district). I veered onto a side street and noticed queues of tourists—which normally would trigger a claustrophobic U-turn. Instead, I stopped. A vivacious Napoletano yelled numbers (in Italian) from a doorway, then briskly whisked singles, couples, and families responding to each shout inside a storefront. Occasionally, he’d repeat a number exaggeratedly—in Italian, then English—wait a split-second, then move on chronologically if no one reacted or stepped forward to claim the digits. Confused about the line situation, I approached a couple standing near a small chain-link crowd barrier and asked about the protocol. They explained: grab a number from the emcee to dine inside; otherwise, stand in line to place a takeout order. I made eye contact with the man-in-charge. “Sì, signora,” he acknowledged, and handed me a blue sliver of paper stamped #47. I leaned against a graffitied wall for a moment, debating whether to wait it out or bail. The numbers flew by. One Italian lady apparently didn’t hear her number, missed it, and implored the emcee to let her in. Exhibiting saint-like patience, he reiterated the restaurant’s non-negotiable methodology to this increasingly dismayed woman while continuing to rattle off numbers. Clearly well-practiced at this emotional dance, he eventually waved her inside without skipping a beat in his chronological sequence. A mere four minutes later. “Quarantasette!” That’s me! Another employee modeling supreme composure amid dozens of hungry and clueless humans sardined into cramped quarters sat me at a community table across from a guy of Eastern European descent who avoided eye contact as if he’d been tricked into a blind date. I ordered a margarita pizza and a Peroni beer. In the open kitchen three feet from my table, two fifties-ish maestros conducted a symphony of four twenties-ish guys in charge of different arias: pressing dough, ladling marinara sauce, arranging fior di latte (“flower of milk”; cow’s milk mozzarella) cheese, adding single leaves of basil, wielding wooden paddles, placing each capolavoro (masterpiece) into an open wood-burning stove, periodically lifting the edges of the dough to check char status, and eventually extracting each work of art for delivery to its intended recipient.
My Meal: A large pizza-for-one, thin crust in the middle, puffy toasted edges. Marinara sauce—juicy. Fior di latte cheese—tangy. Dough—light, airy, crispy. I started off with knife and fork, then shifted to hand-fold. I didn’t think I could possibly eat the entire thing. I devoured every bite. The food didn’t change my life, but the experience taught me a lot about the beauty of simplicity. Total bill: 9 euro.
Servers: For a place handling such rapid turnover of patrons hailing from countless countries, it felt more like dance than chaos. The chefs/cooks laughed, joked, shimmied to music. The men organizing and processing the numbers, the seating, the checks—businesslike and enduringly calm and composed. An upbeat communal experience.
Family/Traditional/Neighborhood
Pizzeria Pavia (Via Solitaria, 34)
Vibe: One morning, I decided to travel by (very vibrantly graffitied and confusing-AF-to-figure-out-the-schedule) train to nearby Ercolano to see the ruins of a coastal town engulfed in lava when Mount Vesuvio erupted in 79 A.D. After hours exploring preserved pottery and frescoes, I headed back home, and got lost (natch) navigating the labyrinthine historic streets between Naples’ Garibaldi train station and my apartment. Starving and running a tad late for a series of virtual meetings, I decided to pop into a tiny pizzeria at the top of Pallonetto Santa Lucia—the sloped street where my Airbnb is situated. I stepped inside a family-run shop. Seven tables. Pictures of Diego Maradona coated every wall. I asked a sweet lady in Italian if it’s possible to order a pizza to go—portare via—hoping this wasn’t some dumb thing only Americans do. “Ma certo,” she responded, and asked me what type of pizza I wanted. Her husband opened a refrigerator to extract a container of friarielli. Her son began kneading dough. The lady pulled a thin cardboard pizza box off a shelf and set to finding me the coldest bottle of water in her stock.
My Meal: Thin-crust pizza (yet puffy and airy at the edges again) with dime-sized slices of sausage, friarielli, and fior di latte cheese; no marinara sauce, which I didn’t realize when I ordered it. Delicious. I ate the entire thing standing up in my kitchen, olive oil dribbling my chin.
AND NOW FOR THE FONT!
Foodie pizza!
Impasto 55 (Piazza Vittoria, 11)
Vibe/Font: Another day, I trekked uphill to Villa Floridiana, a pretty park with a fountain full of turtles. I chose a different pathway back down to sea level (note to self: please stop doing that), again accidentally trespassing on private switchback trails trying to find my way back to landmarks I recognized. Leg muscles screaming at me, I chided myself for constantly overdoing everything (#Ariesproblems). Finally reaching the Lungomare, I needed food, stat. Through an open doorway, I noticed an Italian phrase written in cursive light bulbs on a brick wall: “Perchè la vita è un brivido che vola via…è tutto un equilibrio sulla follia.” Rough translation: Because life is a thrill that flies away… it's all a balance on madness. Intrigued, I peered further inside. The restaurant’s logo: the word impasto (dough), lowercase, in cursive font, the “i” drawn as a piece of wheat, the “t” another wheat stalk threading a needle, the seven letters in olive green, the 55 in chianti red. More words in script decorated a wood panel along a banquette. Equilibrio. Balance. I walked—alphabetically hypnotized—toward a two-top table and glanced into a visible kitchen where a cute chef handled his pizza paddle like an oar, placing artfully decorated dough inside a brick oven. Another light-bulb message beamed from red ceramic tiles: “La vita non è alto che la costante ricerca dell’equilibrio.” Rough translation: Life is nothing higher than the constant search for balance. There was no way I wasn’t eating at this place.
My Meal: It took a while for anyone to notice me even though only three tables were occupied: two gorgeous Italian couples pausing to make out between bites of burrata; one solo male diner. Eventually, I ordered a Diavolo pizza: spicy salami, fior di latte, basil, tomato sauce. Without exaggeration, the best pizza I’ve eaten in a decade. Juicy, zesty, fiery.
Servers: Here, I felt a little invisible, to be honest. As my best friend Clay would say, it felt like the server “didn’t care if I lived or died.” Ha! But the chef smiled and waved a few times. Ultimately, the service didn’t matter to me; I loved being surrounded by all the words. I felt completely at equilibrio—mentally, physically, emotionally, linguistically, soul-ly.
Meatballs
Family/Traditional/Neighborhood
Pizzeria Antico Capri (Via Speranzella, 110) (the “small hope” street again!)
Vibe: Part of the writing work I’m doing during this month in Italy—in addition to finalizing my travel memoir manuscript and launching this Substack—relates to incorporating Generative AI into my teaching. So…because ChatGPT4o and I are all hot-and-heavy right now, I asked my chatbot boyfriend for advice on a non-touristy authentic restaurant I should try in Naples. (Spoiler alert: My chatbot boyfriend needs to work on understanding my vibe.) I set out to find Antico Capri in vibrant Quartieri Spagnoli. Two wooden tables flanked the entrance. Another solo female traveler sat at one, reading a book. I asked a server—in Italian—if I could snag the other. He responded, “Yes, madam.” In English. I settled in a chair on cobblestones as motorbikes whizzed by, one carrying a parent and three giggling toddlers linked like Legos, another steered by a driver juggling six bags of groceries and ranting into a phone sandwiched between chin and shoulder, another transporting a businessman and his giant Rottweiler. The waiter began translating the menu into English though I tried to interject, “Parlo un po’ d’italiano.” When I ordered friarielli as a side dish, he responded, in English, “Order something else. You won’t like that.”
My Meal: I ordered meatballs, which arrived in a beautiful ceramic bowl hand-painted with orange and green swirls. Despite the waiter’s attempt to educate me on my own vegetable preferences (ha!), I stuck with my friarielli plan and enjoyed every bite from equally gorgeous pottery.
Server: I have a no-return policy to places where I can’t practice Italian, and my waiter here wouldn’t engage with me in that way. (Maybe he just likes to speak English. But he also kept calling me “madam,” which makes me feel approximately 467 years old.) When I went inside to pay my check (not to be all expert-y but I’ve learned that many Italian restaurants take payment at la cassa inside rather than delivering checks to tables), the proprietor ran my credit card and then I realized he’d charged me double for the coperto (a minor cover charge for bread and water). When I pointed this out to him (I mean, the cost was negligible, but my life is an ongoing work-in-progress in learning how to stand up for myself), he pulled a chilled bottle of limoncello from a refrigerator, filled a plastic shot glass, and apologized. “Mi scusa!” Sips of the lemony digestivo softened all the edges of my walk home.
‘A Casa d’ ‘e Femminielli (Vico Lungo del Gelso, 97) (gelso = mulberry)
Vibe: I’d planned to hike to Bosco di Capodimonte (six miles roundtrip to a hilltop park offering panoramic views) and I figured I should eat beforehand. My map kept telling me to take Via Toledo (a chain-store thoroughfare that reminded me of cluttered Fulton Street in Brooklyn, slightly upscaled by the prevalence of artisanal gelato shops). Preferring to immerse in Quartieri Spagnoli’s Maradona homages and Sophia Loren street art rather than dodging logjammed tourists window-shopping for sneakers and two-for-one underwear promotions, I hung a left turn. I stopped at each pescheria (fish shop) to stare at Styrofoam containers of ostriche (oysters), vongole (a species of clam named after Venus, the Roman goddess), lupini (smaller Venus clams). Worried I was annoying the pescivendolo (fishmonger) by snapping photos of a half-swordfish bleeding all over a cutting board, I pressed onward and noticed a restaurant with wooden tables set in a series of open archways—an indoor-outdoor vibe. The name on the door: ‘a CASA d’ ‘e FEMMiNIELLi—mostly all caps, three curiously-placed apostrophes, only two out of three “i”s lower-cased. (I later learned that femminielli refers to a third gender in traditional Neapolitan culture.) I made eye contact with a host. He and a younger server—likely his daughter given their resemblance—gestured at a two-top. I sat. Italian music lilted from speakers. High ceilings and terracotta walls gave the restaurant a relaxed, airy feel. Hand-woven placemats lay on each table.
My Meal: I ate six delicious meatballs out of an earth-toned tureen, and a medley of vegetables on a hand-painted plate: zucchine alla scapece (a Napoletano specialty of lightly fried zucchini with mint and vinegar); eggplant; red, yellow, and green peppers; and naturally, more friarielli.
Servers: The dad and daughter were kind, sweet, and friendly, spoke Italian with me, and taught me vegetable vocabulary.
AND NOW FOR THE FONT!
Foodie meatball situation!
Cavoli Nostri (Via Palepoli, 32) (palepoli = old city, derived from the Greek, paleopolis—which predated neapolis (new city), which became Napoli!)
Font/Vibe: On a walk to Napoli’s port area to ride a hydrofoil to the nearby island of Procida, I passed a restaurant with an awesome metal sign, bright green lettering poking through a laser-cut stencil, the words cavoli and nostri surrounding a cute cabbage (cavoli nostri means our cabbages). Pretty philodendron and ivy vines trailed from a landing over the sign. On my way back from Procida, I stopped for a meal. A smiley server sat me at an outdoor table a shade of blue closer to robin’s egg than Napoli-azzurro, with a view of Mount Vesuvio. A slowed-down version of Sia’s song “Titanium” played in the background.
My Meal: I started with a bowl of vellutata (a thick soup) of pumpkin, rosemary oil, and sliced almonds, then segued to yummy meatballs made from lentil beans in a ragù sauce on a bed of friarielli. **I returned to this place to try another meatball dish mainly because I loved the name: La Bionda di Trieste (The Blonde from Trieste)—eggplant meatballs stuffed with lentil cheese, in a chicory panko crust, sprinkled with sliced almonds.
Servers: My server on my first visit was fantastico—spoke Italian with me, helped me decide which dishes to order. When I was confused about the difference between vellutata and zuppa, he taught me that in vellutata (meaning velvety), vegetables are pureed, thickened with egg yolks or cream, and blended again; zuppa ingredients are left chunky. When I returned to the restaurant for a second meal, a different waiter forbid me from choosing vellutata or anything even soup-adjacent because “only Americans eat soup when it’s this hot, and you’re in Napoli.” Ha!
Bloom Bistrot (Via Cavallerizza a Chiaia, 9) (cavallerizza = woman who rides horses)
Font/Vibe: Strolling a shopping district in a nice neighborhood called Chiaia, jumping out of the way of yet another renegade motorbike, I nearly collided with a chalkboard decorated with dried roses, the word Bloom written in pretty cursive. The menu listed eight daily specials, elegant leaves and ivy vines hand-drawn around the food options as decoration. Two tables sat on cobblestones on either side of the chalkboard. Pink and white flowers burst from mason jars. Straw-colored twine secured napkins around silverware. An adorable couple greeted me and sat me at one of the outdoor tables.
My Meal: Polpette al limone: two tasty white-meat patties (possibly chicken, I wasn’t certain) topped with slices of lemon, drizzled with a citron-y sauce. I devoured a mountain of zucchine alla scapece and the freshest basil leaf I’ve encountered in my lifetime.
Server: The wife treated me like her long-lost daughter. I loved the elegant nurturing femininity of this place.
As my weeks in Naples clicked by, fonts fueled me toward a few more restaurants that intertwined healthy(ish) ingredients, an organic ethos, and thoughtful culinary and aesthetic design. Here are three standout highlights (that don’t fit any particular food category above) of my font/food journey through Napoli.
FONT = FOODIE!
Cu.Qu (Vicoletto Berio, 12-13)
Font/Vibe: In my traipsing of Quartieri Spagnoli, a vivid yellow sign stood out: blue letters CU.QU.; the phrase cucina di quartiere hand-painted in cursive beneath the four capital letters; images of a yellow-and-white fried egg in a blue pan, a blue crab, red tomatoes, and a lemon. A row of thin community tables flanked alley walls; bar stools in primary colors wobbled on cobblestones. Waiters placed wine glasses decorated with hand-drawn blue seashells on placemat reproductions of the Cu.Qu. sign. (I totally missed the connection that the Cu and the Qu in the restaurant name referred to the first two letters of cucina (kitchen or cuisine) and quartiere (neighborhood)—until a ChatGPT4o query clued me in.) A waiter sat me at a long table by myself. A group of eight fashionable Napoletani in suits dined across the alley from me—perhaps an office team on a lunch break.
My Meal: I started with a lentil salad on a bed of valeriana (a lettuce described as nutty in flavor) dotted with juicy red and yellow cherry tomatoes, crunchy crostini croutons, and white onions (red onions give me migraines so I normally avoid them but these slivered white ones were delicious). Next, I ate baccalà (cod) fritters on a radicchio salad with dollops of a mustardy mayonnaise.
Servers: Personable, warm, spoke Italian with me. I didn’t feel rushed. I wrote in my journal a bit at the table even after I finished my meal.
Dialetti (Vico Satriano, 10)
Font/Vibe: Detouring into a narrow alley on my way toward a stylish shopping street (Via Carlo Poerio—which I first misread as poesia (poetry)) in the Chiaia neighborhood, rust-colored block letters glued to an orange wall halted me: capital D, cursive lowercase i, capital A, regular l and e, cursive double-t, regular i. Dialetti, meaning dialects. I love dialects! Below the letters, handwritten chalk on a bronze placard added a notation: “97% Natural Wine & Food,” a heart dotting the i. Two hip, eco-designed, lounge-y rooms with diverse seating arrangements opened onto a patio with four metal tables. I asked two beautifully artsy (linen tops, effortlessly cool jeans, patterned espadrille wedges, hair and skin radiating a genuine glowiness I’ve wanted my whole life) female servers if I could sit at a patio table, da sola. “Ma certo!” An acoustic version of Madonna’s song “Holiday” played from hidden speakers.
My Meal: A server started me off with a small plate holding three chunks of spongy whole-grain bread with crunchy crust flaking like tree bark, a dab of olive oil. She recommended I try an orange wine called Pranzegg. I ate a delicious nodino (literally a knot) of fior di latte on strips of grilled cabbage, plus asparagus sprinkled with caciocavallo cheese. (I learned that caciocavallo means “cheese on horseback” or “horse cheese,” referring to a traditional method of tying balls of the cheese together with a rope and draping them over a wooden board—like saddlebags on a horse—to age.) I added a side dish of roasted carrots, a Dialetti specialty.
Servers: Everyone working at Dialetti is fabulously kind and intrinsically penetratingly beautiful. Each person I interacted with patiently explained—in Italian—the ethos of the organic restaurant and described each dish in detail, teaching me words for unfamiliar natural ingredients. They took the time to share their creative process and intentional choices. This place is a gem.
Etto (Via Santa Maria di Costantinopoli, 102)
Font/Vibe: Hungry (and totally overstimulated) after a morning strolling the endless rooms of Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli (Egyptian mummies! Chiseled sculptures of Hercules’ calves! Busts of Socrates!), I walked in raindrops along an interesting street called Via Santa Maria di Costantinopoli. Once again, a font drew my eye. All caps for the word L’ETTO, plus a row of lowercase letters spelling netto piacere. (L’etto means the hectogram; netto piacere means distinct pleasure.) A metal flowerbox reiterated the restaurant name ETTO, ivy vines tumbling over its edges. I opened the door into a bustling interior space; a colorful painting of Muhammad Ali punching with a carrot enlivened one wall. Female waitstaff tended to patrons, words like squisita (exquisite) and elegante (elegant) draping the backs of the servers’ black t-shirts. I snuck peeks at what others had ordered, each item plated on awesome pottery. I asked if I could sit outside. (I love the romance of dining in the rain alone in a foreign city.) “Ma certo!” They sat me at a metal table with blue textured placemats, a market umbrella shielding me from drizzle, vibrant graffiti pulsating from an orange wall across the street.
My Meal: I started with an appetizer special—a fusion of gamberi (shrimp) on baby spinach with goji berries, orange slices, cashew cream, and poppy seeds. Main dish: salmon filet with beet sauce, spinach, jicama, apples, chickpeas, dried cherries, and goji berries. Healthy, fresh, mouth-tingling. I loved this meal so much, I returned to the restaurant a second time, sat at the exact same table, and ate the exact same thing. (The servers recognized me and said, “Bentornata!” which I appreciated. I love when travel makes you feel seen.)
Servers: Everyone working at Etto is wonderful and engaging, spoke Italian with me, and didn’t seem to mind me being the one weirdo sitting outside in the rain. This place is a gem as well.
Wine Shops
Me saying I love red wine is the understatement of the year. At home, my go-to, day-to-day (like, drink on my couch in sweatpants while devouring a rotisserie chicken and watching Netflix) wine is Marques de Riscal Riserva, a Rioja from Spain. I like wine that tastes like pepper, spice, earth. When I’m in Italy, I tend to drink either Sicilian Etna Rosso (I love wine from volcanic soil) or a hard-to-find wine from the Friuli region called Schiopettino (which means “gunshot” or “little crack”). A wine shop in Australia introduced me to Schiopettino through a producer called Billy Button Wines, incidentally with a great font on their labels!
So, of course, my Day One walkabout in Napoli included a pit stop to stock up on vino for nightly writing sessions on my Airbnb balcony.
First, I tried the grocery store which, because I’m picky about wine (I’m prone to horrible migraines so I need to stick to my peppery, spicy, earthy grapes that don’t induce headaches), usually fails me in Italy. Grocery store wines are inexpensive but rarely the stuff I like. Nonetheless, on Day One, wanting to sip vino while clacking away on my laptop, I panic-purchased a Barbera which turned out to be jammy and gross. The next day, I hunted down an actual wine shop (enoteca or vineria). Over my month in Naples, I discovered four (plus a bonus option in case of a wine emergency).
Enoteca Conte di Pasquale Zinno (Piazza Sant’Anna di Palazzo, 4): A cavernous neighborhood wine shop with zillions of choices. They even have my FAVORITE Etna Rosso from a vineyard called Donnafugata with the most awesome wine label of all time: a woman’s face rising out of a volcano, her hair erupting like lava. (Also, the name of the winery means “woman who fled” or “woman in flight”—which is apropos to me on a million levels.) The proprietor of this wine shop is nice and helpful.
Monte di Vino (Via Monte di Dio, 66): A tiny, very neighborhood-y shop near my Airbnb. I bought two bottles of Etna Rosso here, but my purchase exhausted their stock. I tried a pricier-than-usual Chianti (thinking, how can anyone go wrong with Chianti?) but it turned out to be overly raisin-y. (I don’t like wine that tastes like overripe raisins. My grandmother used to tell a story about how, when I was four years old, I came home from school and announced I had eaten four raisins, like I’d made some grand societal sacrifice.) In this shop, I need more time to browse unfamiliar bottles, but I feel like I make the staff uncomfortable taking so long deciding, so I haven’t shopped here often.
attimi divini (I am obsessed with the lowercase font!) (Via Santa Lucia, 20a): Hands-down my favorite wine shop in Naples, and the closest one to my apartment! The proprietor Eugenio is patient and informative (and handsome in that salt-and-pepper, looks-you-in-the-eye, asks-you-your-name, and knows-his-way-around-a-corkscrew kinda way), taking tons of time to explain wines in Italian to me. I bought an Etna Rosso and a Schiopettino here, but then, Eugenio introduced me to a local red wine produced near Mount Vesuvio: Sorrentino Vigna Lapillo Lacryma Christi. Lacryma Christi means “Christ’s tears,” from the myth of Jesus divinely inspiring grape vines to grow on land near Vesuvio—simply by weeping (I wish my tears could do that). Lapillo is Latin for “little stones” or material falling out of the air during a volcanic eruption. This yummy wine is slightly effervescent (which is how I feel when I drink it). My only regret: buying only one bottle, frolicking back to buy a couple more, only to find the shop closed for two days!
Enoteca Sermoneta (Largo Sermoneta, 31): A nice shop near the northern end of the Lungomare curve; more expensive than the other enotecas I found (my Donnafugata is seven euro more here than at Enoteca Conte), but they have a good selection, and the proprietor is sweet and helpful.
BONUS—the natural-food restaurant Dialetti described above!: I had made a giant rookie mistake…I returned home exhausted from taking a train (the wrong one) plus a bus, then hiking to the summit of Mount Vesuvio in the searing sun…Happy to be home and excited to write about my adventure, I went to pour myself a celebratory glass of vino but realized I had none…on a Sunday…when all the wine shops are closed. Potential disaster! Strongly desiring the velvety feeling of that first sip on my balcony, getting me in the mood to write, I headed back out and spent an hour looking for a solution to my dilemma. Then I had a eureka moment: I wonder if Dialetti is open on a Sunday and would sell me a bottle? I willed my burned-out legs to trek me to the Chiaia neighborhood. One of the servers from my last visit was setting up tables for Sunday dinner! I conversed in Italian with her, trying to explain my love of wines that taste like pepper, spice, earth. Ultimately, we landed on an all-natural Montepulciano/Merlot blend by Robb De Matt Winery called Hitchcock with a fabulous-slash-alarming label (a blood-spattered drain). A note on the back of the bottle says, “niente più che uva.” Nothing more than grapes.
Final note on my wine experience in Naples: I still aspire to make it my mission in life to be one of those ladies who pulleys bottles of wine up to my apartment in a Napoli-azzurro blue bucket on a rope.
Well, if you’ve made it through this longgggg post, thank you for coming along on my adventures through the Napoletano restaurant scene. Please stay tuned for a new one about hilly hikes all over Naples! After all, as the restauranteurs at Impasto 55 brilliantly note, “La vita è un equilibrio.” Life is a balance. Andiamo!