You will find La Torre Del Saracino in the Mediterranean town Vico Equense at the Gulf of Naples in Italy’s Campania. The location of the restaurant is perfect with amazing infinite sea views in one direction and the dramatic Mounts Lattari and Faito in another. Just below the several hundreds of years old Tower of Caporivo in the small port of Marina d’Aequa you will find one of Italy’s best restaurants.

Head Chef Gennaro Esposito founded La Torre Del Saracino together with his girlfriend Vittoria Aiello back in 1992 and since then the restaurant has made itself a name.

The multi-talented Gennaro Esposito realised his calling as a chef when he was only 15 years old and has since then understood the importance of the balance between discipline and innovation to become a true master chef. Since 2003 the Head Chef has organised an annual event in his town that lasts for three days and is a local party, the Festa a Vico, for established and promising young chefs, who cook meals together for hundreds of visitors. The feast has become a success and the event grows for every year.

The setting and style of La Torre Del Saracino is awesome and the restaurant is built around a 1,300 years old watchtower. The combination of old with the location in the watchtower and the modern interiors works great. You can have outside lunch or dinner or you can sit in the beautiful dining room. We recommend you to start in the lounge with some impressive locally built loudspeakers and sound equipment for the perfect sound and a wet dream for music nerds. The perfect sound in the lounge pairs perfect with a glass of sparkling and appetisers.

The service is great and La Torre Del Saracino can flaunt one of the world’s foremost Restaurant Managers, Luciano Esposito, who knows everything that there is worth knowing about the hospitality business. He has many years of experience and worked on Donald Trump’s super yacht in the past before it was sold. Luciano Esposito also works as the Sommelier and in the lower part of the tower the restaurant is located in one of Italy’s most impressive wine cellars with thousands of bottles stored in perfect temperature and humidity.

Seafood is essential when dining at La Torre Del Saracino and a lot of different pasta dishes are offered as well, such as the swordfish ravioli with anchovy sauce, sun dried tomatoes and oregano, but also the mix pasta dish with ten different variations of pasta together with shellfish and rock fish. The risotto with Montoro onions, smoked “Sauro”, crispy seaweed flavoured with lemon and chilli is delicious. 100 percent of the vegetables are locally produced and the same goes for nearly all ingredients. The best meat is the fantastic pork with sweet and sour apricots, dates, ginger and “Annurca” apple sauce. The local favourite dessert and a must is the Neapolitan rum baba, pastry cream and wild strawberries.

There are several really good restaurants in the magnificent Campania region and La Torre Del Saracino is certainly among the very best and the fact that its location is both breathtakingly beautiful and rather unique in a watchtower does not make it worse.

Written by Andy