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am head over heels in love with a
rock. But I am not the first to fall for
the limestone crag that erupts out of the
sea just a few miles off Italy's southwest
coast. Starting with the ancient Greeks,
would-he conquerors have fought over
it; Ulysses sailed toward it; Roman emperor Augustus brought his summer
court to it; and his stepson Tiberius later
set up the whole government on it. Much
later, in 1826, two German artists discovered the luminous water cave now
known as the Blue Grotto, and new hordes
began to descend. In our own century,
first jet-setters and then masses of tourists
(flying out of the Bay of Naples and into
Capri's harbor in half an hour on the new
hydrofoils) have staged what is surely
the most significant invasion of all time.
And that is the main reason Capri, for
all its sexy buzz, gets no gastronomic respect. "Tourist food," was the response I
got from friends, American and Italian
alike, when they heard I was planning
a culinary excursion to the island. And,
based on what I'd encountered on previous visits, I couldn't really disagree .
My earlier trips, however, had been
quick ones, and all of them made at the
height of tourist season. This time I went
in spring and lingered for almost two
weeks, discovering historical mysteries,
hidden paths and byways, and, most important, the people themselves. The proud
but extremely social Caprese love their
rock so much they go to great lengths to
make you feel the same way. When they
invite you into their homes, you find they
can really cook- -especially if you appreciate food that's simple and direct. The
naysayers, apparently, have been setting
their sights on elaborate cuisine, which
you won't find on this island. And my
guess is that they haven't been to Capri
in a while--because the eating establishments here have improved enormously
over the last decade.
You could call Caprese cooking a subset of the cuisine around Naples. The
whole Naples region, of course, is known
for magnificent pasta dishes made with
some of the world's best tomatoes. Mozzarella is also king in Campania, and
with both cow's- and water buffalo'smilk versions of the cheese being pulled
from cauldrons of hot water every day,
the result is pizza so good it can't be duplicated anywhere. Restaurants in Naples
and coastal Campania in addition offer
sparkling selections of seafood, simply
cooked and sauced.
n Capri you will find almost the
same kind of cooking as around
Naples, but a few local specialties and a few local ingredients
give the food a delicious twist.
The tiny island is home to an
astonishing variety of plants,
and this means a slavish adherence to
the use of fresh and seasonal produce.
The encircling sea is another plus.
Yes, Naples is on the water but Capri
restaurateurs boast that their island fish
is fresher, right off the fishermen's boats.
Furthermore, there's little sand underneath their waters; it's mostly rock, and
rock fish, they maintain, are intrinsically
superior. It is true that Naples has more
shellfish-but few Caprese would trade
their beloved local pezzogne (a meaty,
red-tinged fish) or such bony, gelatinous
little fish as scorfano, lucerna, and coccio (used to make zuppa di pesce) for a
few Neapolitan mussels or clams.
None of the island's specialties is startlingly original, yet you will find a range
of tomato-based pasta dishes with inventive names like sciue sciue, aum aum, and
chiummenzana. And you'll discover that
the Caprese are responsible for a few
dishes now found on tables everywhere:
those overlapping slices of mozzarella
and tomato (named insalata caprese);
a round ravioli, stuffed with Caciotta
cheese and flavored with marjoram,
called ravioli caprese; and a devastatingly good chocolate cake known as
torta caprese. (There are cooks who tout
a lemon-flavored cake as the true torta
of the island-and with some justification, as Capri is awash in lemon trees.)
In too many other island destinations,
it seems, most of the restaurants are situ
ated apart from the main attractions.
(How many restaurants on, say, Nantucket, offer views of the sea? Of the
sunset'?) Here the restaurants seem purposefully laid out to accentuate the island's highlights. Simply by trying a
different place every day, you'll see many
of Capri's most compelling facets.
Your first glimpse will be of the north
side of Capri, at Marina Grande, where
all the commercial boats dock. While
still at sea you will be charmed by the
multicolored buildings that line the quay,
a number of them with graceful arched
balconies. But as soon as you land, a dif-
ferent reality vies for your attention. For
Marina Grande
is a rough-and-tumble
finaly,
and,
fish,
workingman's village, the major habitation on the island for the thousands of
Caprese laborers. It is also ground zero
of the tourist world, with a full-throttle
assortment of tacky billboards, pushy
hawkers,
and garish shops.Walking
thes
.
And the dining establishments too
often reflect this alternate reality. Just a
minute by taxi up the hill is DA PA0LIN0,
one of the island's most touristy restaurants. The draw is that in warm weather
you can relax under hundreds of lemon
trees, soaking up the sweet night air. In
June, however, you will without question be sitting next to American honeymooners. In any season you'll be helping
yourself to mediocre offerings from the
huge antipasto bar and ordering some of
the only over-sauced pasta in Italy.
I've got a better idea. Enjoy a Campari
under the lemons, then choose to spend
your Marina Grande dining time where
the locals go: at L'APPRODO, a tiny familyrun trattoria just a few steps from the bustle of the waterfront. The padrone there
seemed shocked to see a tourist, but then
proceeded to serve up one of the best
green-vegetable soups of my life, along
with some wonderfully simple driedpasta dishes, great thin pizza (dinner only,
as in Naples), and a damned good steak,
of all things.
If you'd prefer to skip the local scene
and check out Capri's most heralded
pizza spot, get a ride up to the main town
of Capri. Sooner or later you're going to
have to do that anyway, since it is the
center of island everything on the griled island.or The
quaint surrounding buildings of Piazza
Umberto I, at the heart of town, stand
vigil over the café tables where the wandering multitude slakes its thirst. More
atmospheric are the narrow medieval
streets
that lie
beyond
just
lanes, between the white tufa stone of the
houses and trailing a black-clad widow
carrying home her groceries, you can almost forget the throw-away cameras and
Capri T-shirts that are everywhere for
sale, even in these ancient alleys.
It is here that you will thread your
way to two of my favorite restaurants on
the island. The first, AURORA, is the one
widely known for its pizza. Go beyond
that on the menu, though, for in these
clubby, brick-lined confines is some of
the most immediately likable food on
Capri, including full-flavored pastas (I
especially loved the linguine with lobster), and perfectly grilled shellfish such
as scampi and gamberoni.
If any spot on the island were to get a
Michelin star, I think it would be nearby
LA CAPANNINA. So, apparently, does the
smart Italian set that summers on Capri,
judging from the crowds here. Antipasto
buffets are everywhere on the island, but
don't miss the one offered by longtime
owners Antonio and Aurelia De Angelis.
Several appetizer specials also knocked
me out, among them grilled smoked mozzarella stuffed with olives and fried zucchini flowers filled with Pecorino. And
this is the place to try a first-rate ravioli
caprese before settling in to either zuppa
pesc
di
La Capannina's sunny lemon torta.
here's one more reason you
should challenge the crowds
and visit the main town of
Capri: It is the perfect base for
walking excursions to the many
intriguing sights on the eastern
half of the island. Among the
most vaunted attractions are the Faraglioni, a trio of rocks called the Stella,
the Mezzo, and the Scópolo, which tower
out of the sea at the island's southeast
corner. To see this sight from land you
have only to wander out of Capri town
and down the elegant Via Camerelle, a
shopping street that leads to Punta Tragara, a perfect viewing spot. The street
also leads you past a number of fine culinary options. If the gelato siren is calling, consider a stop at BAR EMBASSY, a
terrific ice-cream establishment. If dinner is more appropriate, RISTORANTE
FARAGLIONI is the kind of place that
drizzles Laudemio, the finest Tuscan
olive oil, on all the likely targets. Pasta
here is generally good, but what excited
me most were the meats-from prosciutto
and salami to one of the best bisteccas
I've had south of Tuscany.
Another walking path out oftown takes
you to the secluded park called Gardens
of Augustus and to Via Krupp-a road
to the sea on the island's south side. On
the way you'll encounter LA CANTINELLA, the Capri cousin of a famous Naples
restaurant. This is a weird, slightly cheesy
place, but much of the food is very
good-and it is the place on the island
for fresh pasta.
Villa Jovis, another important tourist
spot, looms directly over Capri town on
the east side of the island. It is here that
the Roman emperor Tiberius built his
most impressive estate, a place that contemporaneous historian Suetonius tells
us was the site of almost unimaginably
wild pagan orgies.
On your walking trek to the villa, take
a quick detour to the Arco Naturale, an
awe-inspiring rock formation that just
happens to lie near LE GROTTELLE, a very
simple restaurant that serves truly unbeatable limoncello, the macerated-lemon
liqueur found all over the island.
Other points of interest in or near Capri
town are La Certosa, a beautifully preserved fourteenth-century church and
cloisters; the modernist Casa Malaparte,
built by Tuscan writer Curzio Malaparte
around 1940 on Punta Massullo, south of
the Arco Naturale; and the Castiglione castle, a wonderful remnant of medieval life.
For all the island's charms, it is not
a haven for beach-lovers. In most spots
rock simply juts up from the sea, with
nary a grain of sand in sight. The best
beach is at Marina Piccola, a small port
on the opposite side of Capri from Marina
Grande. Here you can check into a beach
club, which offers a private beach, a cabana, and lunch. The glamour ghosts of
the fifties and sixties film world hover
over the turquoise interior of the beachclub restaurant LA CANZONE DEL MARE,
a terrific spot for midday dining (dinner's not served). Skip the foie gras and
chateaubriand items and dive immediately into the fabulous pasta dishes, including the wonderfully simple farfalle
con zucchini. I also loved the pesce all'
acqua pazza, or fish in "crazy water," a
Neapolitan fish-in-broth affair, here improved by the use of local rock fish.
Capri's other town, Anacapri, lies just
north of Mount Solaro, the island's highest
peak. You can escape the hamburger
places in the bus-clogged main square
here with a stroll to a family-run restaurant called IL SOLITARIO that looks kind
of like a trellised arbor in someone's
backyard but serves delicious salads, pizzas, and pastas with shellfish.
By taxi you can do even better. Just
above the town is the restaurant-inn DA
GELSOMINA, which may at first put you off
by the trilingual nature of its signs. The
first taste of the rustic whole-wheat bread
will change that, as you begin to realize
this is a bona fide do-it-from-scratch kind
of place. There are vegetables from the
garden, grilled homemade sausages, refreshing homemade wine, wonderfully
viscous homemade limoncello, and the
best spaghetti alla chiummenza I sampled on the island.
Also above town is the Villa San
Michele, built by famed Swedish physician Axel Munthe and providing a gorgeous glimpse of turn-of-the-century life.
You'd also do well to take a chair lift to
the top of Mount Solaro for an unsurpassed view of the entire "neighborhood":
the whole of Capri, Vesuvius, the island
of Ischia, the Bay of Naples and Naples
itself, and Sorrento and the Amalfi coast.
Lastly, on this side of the island, is the
Blue Grotto itself, with its frenzied congregation of boats and sea hawkers. If
you're the type who must find out what
all the shouting's about, take a launch
at Marina Grande, transfer to a smaller
boat, and slip inside to see the eerie
turquoise light that shines up through
LA CAPANNINA
Via Le Botteghe, 12/14
Tel. 837 0732
L'APPRODO
Piazzetta A. Ferraro, 8
Tel. 837 8990
LE GROTTELLE
Via Arco Naturale
Tel. 8375719
the water. To the nineteenth-century observer the vision must have been transcendent; to us it's nothing Spielberg or
Zeffirelli couldn't pull off on a bad day.
Here's another option: Take a short
taxi ride from Anacapri to a fine open-air
restaurant that sits right above the grotto.
A'DDO Riccio is a great place to sample
pezzogne and local lobster. More important, the chef-the German-born wife of
the proprietor-makes the richest torta
caprese I tasted anywhere on the island.
It's the perfect spot in which to savor the
power ofthis magnet in the sea that draws
admirers from all around the globe.
RESTAURANTS
A'DDO RICCIO
Via Grotta Azzura
Anacapri
Tel. 8371380
AURORA
Via Fuorlovado, 18
Tel. 8370181
BAR EMBASSY
Via Camerelle, 16
Tel. 837 7066
DA
GELSOMINA
Via Migliera, 72
Anacapri
Tel. 8371499
DA PAOLINO
Via Palazzo a Mare, 11
Tel. 837 6102
IL SOLITARIO
Via G. Orlandi, 96
Anacapri
Tel. 8371382
LA CANTINELLA
Via Giacomo Matteotti, 8
Tel. 837 0616
LA CANZONE DEL MARE
Via Marina Piccolo, 93
Tel. 837 0104
RISTORANTE FARAGLIONI
Via Camerelle, 75
Tel. 837 0320
CAPRI RECIPES
FARFALLE CON
ZUCCHINl
"Bow-Tie" Pasta with Zucchini
6 small zucchini
2 teaspoons salt
2 cups packed fresh basil
leaves
1 pound farfalle
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons unsalted
butter
1/2 cup finely grated fresh
Parmigiano-Reggiano
plus additional for serving
Cut zucchini crosswise into 1/8-inchthick slices and in a colander toss with
salt. Let zucchini stand to drain 45 minutes. Pat zucchini dry.
While zucchini is draining, cut basil
into thin strips and bring a 6-quart pasta
pot three fourths full with salted water to
a boil for farfalle. Cook pasta in boiling
water until al dente and ladle out and reserve 1 cup pasta cooking water. Drain
pasta in colander.
While pasta is cooking, in a deep
12-inch heavy skillet heat oil over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking
and sauté zucchini, stirring occasionally, until golden and tender, about 7 minutes. Reduce heat to low and stir in half
of basil. Stir in pasta and butter and gently
toss until butter is melted. Stir in 1/2 cup
reserved pasta water and gently toss
(adding more pasta water as needed if
mixture becomes too dry). Stir in 1/2 cup
Parmigiano-Reggiano, remaining basil,
and salt and pepper to taste.
Serve pasta with additional cheese.
Serves 4 as a main course or 6 as a first
course.
(Continued on page 110)