Has a reputation as being one of the most authentic Neapolitan restaurants in the city. Let's just…read moresay they should take a trip to the beaches (spiagge) of Naples, and sample some of the actual food of the region, because this ain't it. Four of us descended on the place for our weekly lunch....
The only dish we all really liked, and actually, one of the better versions of lengua a la vinagreta (tongue in vinaigrette) that I've had here in BA. Tender as could be and really well seasoned and tangy.
Easily the worst thing on the table, gummy, cold, unseasoned and unpleasant eggplant fritters. Nothing redeemable about these. Not even doused with lemon juice and salt.
Famous for their pastas... the thing is, Naples is more famous for their dried pasta dishes - thin ribbon pastas like spaghetti and linguine, and tube shaped pastas like paccheri and ziti. So maybe our fault for what we ordered, although the only one of those four that was available on the menu was spaghetti. Fussili with pesto. Okay, the pasta itself was pretty well made, and cooked al dente. But the pesto was little more than chopped basil and garlic in a whole lot of oil. A whole lot. Beneath that pile of pasta is a roughly 1/2″ deep pool of cheap olive oil. No salt, no cheese, no pinenuts. No dice.
There is a Neapolitan lasagna. It's a lasagna replacing the meat sauce with a tomato sauce, and replacing the bechamel with ricotta. This did have the ricotta, but then it was layered with ham and cheese (that's very Argentine, not Italian), a lot of cooked spinach, and then topped with bolognese (although, to be fair, while it was the waiter's recommendation, we did have the option of ordering it with classic Neapolitan tomato sauce, which, it turns out, we should have). There is actually a Neapolitan version of bolognese, inspired by the classic ragu of Bologna, using ground beef, carrots, and tomatoes - so this was more or less that. It's just that none of it came together.
We will give them that the meatballs weren't bad - surprisingly light, and quite well seasoned, and... there's that tomato sauce that should have been on the lasagna!
All around, however, kind of a fail, and we choose to disagree with the assessment of it being an authentic Neapolitan spot.
