Pizzicato restaurant naples italy11/11/2023 An espresso and a pastry here, even in this decadent palace of a café, won’t cost you more than five euros. While you’re in this grand establishment (a former haunt of Oscar Wilde) don’t miss looking at the gold imprint of the late Diego Maradona’s foot he played for Napoli in the late 1980’s and led them to the Serie A title, a feat they haven’t managed since. You’ll pay at least double if you take a table so, instead, do as the locals do, and lean against the counter while nibbling on a sfogliatella, a lobster tail shaped, ridged and sugar coated pastry filled with ricotta, cinnamon and fruit. In the morning, make a beeline for the counter at the Grambrinus café next to the opera house. So let yourself go and delight instead at just how insanely cheap the greatest Neapolitan food can be. But don’t be fooled, there are just too many calorific delights on every corner to make weight loss here a feasible possibility. Bargain basement-priced seafood, cakes and street snacksĭo enough street walking and you might think you’ve had a healthy holiday in Naples. A non-flammable saint remains just the ticket for Naples, sitting as it does at the base of a still-active volcano. The Catacomb de San Gennaro was the resting place of the saint of Naples, only beheaded in 305AD after his killers found he wouldn’t alight by burning. Closed to the public until 2008, a local not-for-profit organisation called La Paranza opened up some of these ancient catacombs and trained up disadvantaged locals to become tour guides to these macabre yet graceful underground caverns. Two of these doorways lead into the subterranean Neapolitan world. Tiny doorways open up to reveal coffee shops where an espresso at the counter will cost you one euro maximum while others reveal minuscule grocers and fishmongers plying their wares to locals, some of whom operate a ‘bucket system’ to get their shopping to the upper floors of the apartment buildings, lowering baskets on ropes to street level from their balconies for shopkeepers to fill up with fruit, veg, fish and pasta. Today, this narrow neighbourhood still has its problems but it is no longer dangerous to outsiders. Wherever you look, the chiaroscuro is masterful the characters in the narrative seeming to step in and out of the darkness and into the light in real time as your eyes roam across the canvas. Try to spot the ancient Cimon being breastfed in prison by his own daughter and the bare-chested derelict lying at the feet of St. Commissioned by a group of Naples nobles, the church had (and still does) operate a conformity called the Pio Monte della Misericordia, whereby interest free loans were given to needy locals in exchange for goods, which would be auctioned off if the loan wasn’t repaid.Įven if you’re not in need of some ready Euros in cash, the painting can transfix you with its otherworldly detail for half an hour. The unprepossessing octagonal church, just off the narrow Via dei Tribunal, inside which the 12 foot high piece resides, has a crucial role to play in the story. Visit Caravaggio’s greatest (and strangest) masterpieceĪ northerner he may have been (born in Milan to be precise) but Caravaggio’s most rewarding, odd and absorbing work is right here in Spaccanpoli, the gritty streets of which provide the backdrop to his chiaroscuro tableau depicting the Virgin and Child being lifted towards heaven by winged chariots. All this, and a whole pizza is still only €5.50 (around £4.40) 2. They only do four types of pizza (it was two until recently) but to order anything other than a margherita (with a bottle of crisp Azzurro lager to wash it down) is to miss the whole point of that lengthy wait outside. It’s this last element which, for many devotees, is what gives a Da Michele pizza its smoky, slightly tangy, crunchy snap that is miraculously free of grease. Actually it’s simply San Marzano tomatoes and buffalo mozzarella, generously drizzled with soybean oil. If Degas knew his way around a 500-degree heat pizza oven, he would have created a similarly beautiful impressionist colour scape of reds and soft whites that top this pizza.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |