We are in Padua with only a few days remaining in our Italian itinerary. I am very far behind on the meal reports, which may take the rest of my life to get caught up on. Here, for example, is only my third report, covering our very first meal in Italy, eaten just an hour after our arrival in Naples. We took a cab to our AirBnB flat, got checked in and then headed for Mimi alla Ferrovia. This is a Neapolitan institution. The name comes from the fact that the original proprietor’s nickname was Mimi and the restaurant is located by the train station (ferrovia). I got to it as well via Katie Parla’s website—she recommends it as a less informal place to get classic Neapolitan cooking. It’s not that I was looking for more formal places but the fact that I could make an online booking and be assured of dinner without a wait after arrival was very attractive. Our flat was also just about a 15 minute walk away. Our AirBnB host, however, dissuaded us from walking there—the area by the station can apparently be sketchy after dark—and put us in a cab. On our way back the restaurant likewise advised against walking back and called us a cab. Between cabs, the meal itself was rather good. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Naples
Starita (Naples, June 2023)
My first restaurant report from this ongoing Italy trip was of excellent pizza eaten in Naples (at Attilio). I posted that as we were leaving Rome more than a week ago. My second restaurant report from this ongoing Italy trip is also of excellent pizza eaten in Naples—indeed on the very same day as that first round of excellent pizza. But now I am more than one city behind. From Rome we went to Florence and from Florence to the Tuscan countryside. (We ate pizza in Rome and Florence as well, by the way, though not in the Tuscan countryside.) We are leaving the Tuscan countryside tomorrow for Padua and the wifi has finally perked up enough for me to be able to upload a lot of pictures. And so here you are. What a lovely birthday present for America. You’re welcome. Continue reading
Pizzeria da Attilio (Naples, 2023)
We are currently in Italy and will be here a little while longer. As I type we are getting set to leave Rome for Florence. But we started our trip in Naples. Which is also where we started our over-eating. This lunch at Pizzeria da Attilio was not our first meal in Naples (that was dinner at Mimi alla Ferrovia the previous evening) but it seems right to begin an account of eating in Naples with pizza. And so.
As you would expect, there is a lot of good pizza to be had in Naples and probably almost as many opinions on which the best places to eat pizza in Naples as there are pizza-eating people in Naples. We were staying on Via Duomo, very close to the two most famous places: Antica Pizzeria da Michele and Gino e Toto Sorbillo. We did not, however, eat at either of them. This was largely because both are so popular that you have to wait a really long time to get a table—and if there’s something we don’t like to do when traveling with the kids, it’s waiting at restaurants. But we couldn’t have eaten at both anyway, as one of our two pizza meal slots in the city was spoken for by Attilio. Continue reading