The Restaurant

When you were born with the surname "Pesce", which means "fish" in italian, maybe your path is already drawn. Angelo Pesce and his wife Ida opened a shed in 1959, where there was nothing but sand and sea. There was no hotel Parco Smeraldo, there weren't any restaurants. But the beach is very beautiful, and also very clean among the other ones of Ischia. Ida is a seasonal restaurant, in addition to being a bar and a sea resort. Minimum instructions for a correct use: the evening is better than noon. You know, you can always find a correct sauté of clams and mussels, a mixed frying of fish, some spaghetti, but it's a matter of crowding, children asking for a popsicle, wives claiming their mozzarella and husbands fueled with limoncello. What we mean is that there is a kitchen of "first aid", that is pleasing, but a very better one, meditated.
Angelo and Ida have given their inheritance to their sons. Aldo goes out fishing, Giovanni è is a factotum, Gabriella, Pina and Angela, Giovanni's wife, are in the kitchen. We recommend: cure anchovies, a very common dish, but here the wise use of mint gives a patricular freshness. Linguines (with limpets, shrimps or lobster). La salted seabass (with an almost-heretic cooking, salted, on a grill: we were doubtful, but the result is awesome). The frying, with typical names, nice to discover (and the music of "Guarracino" is dancing inside our heads): "maschie", "perchie", "mennelle", "surici", "alluzze", "rotunni".

Now it's time for mullets, but who knows if there's still some "surice", or mouse fish (due to its overbite): very white meat, delicious. The fish soup, where there's also the "lucerna", a very die-hard fish (but we save you from the bloody details). The stuffed squid, a very ancent recipe, very well played. The herb-flavored cod chunks (with thyme, oregano and just a scent of lemon). Two meat dishes, just on pre-booking: the rabbit cooked "all'ischitana" and the chicken "a la Volcano", cooked under the very hot sand of the "Fumarole". A steam cooking, actually, with good herb flavors. Industrial pastry (with just an homemade apple pie) and a limited choice of wines, not all amazing. A sparkling wine, a "Falanghina dei Campi Flegrei" and a "Gragnano" are the best ones. Gragnano is red, we know: but fresh, young and sparkling, it keeps very well, and we are not among those who want only white wine with the fish.

Gianni and Paola MURA

Barano d'Ischia - Spiaggia dei Maronti | P.IVA 05814180633 | Tel. +39.81.990163 | E-Mail info@ristoranteida.it |