Leon d’Oro

Sarah_W

This was our favourite of the restaurants we tried on a recent visit to Naples, all of them in and around the Piazza Dante. It isn’t a fancy place, but I loved its genuine feeling – it had more the atmosphere of a local neighbourhood place than a city centre restaurant.

We ate here twice. The first time was the best and perhaps over-raised our expectations for the second visit when we found the service a little less attentive (there was a large group of French tourists booked in which may have accounted for that) and the food less generous, though still good.

On our first visit we chose the antipasti misti to start with, and were amazed at the amount of delicious food that arrived at our table: slices of a cheesy pasta “cake”, a selection of tasty vegetable dishes (loved those garlicky courgettes!) and a plate of hot battered nibbles (cheese, potato croquettes etc). We’d both ordered a pasta dish to follow – spaghetti puttanesca for me and pomodoro for Chris. These were fresh and quite nice though not as good as the starters – and we both found it impossible to finish our large bowls. Needless to say we refused dessert, but the waiter insisted on bringing us a small plate of sweet beignet-like treats which we found irrisistable. When we finally asked for the bill a further on-the-house offering appeared – a glass each of the delicious Amari digestif.

Talking of the bill, that was a very reasonable €35.00, including my two glasses of house red and Chris’s large bottle of Peroni.

On our second visit we were again tempted by the antipasti misti, and received a similar selection of vegetables and crusty bread, but no hot items. I never worked out whether this was an oversight (though other tables nearby seemed not to get these, the group of French tourists did), or whether we’d been especially favoured on the previous visit! We then both had pizza – my traditional Margherita was the best I had in Naples by some way, and Chris enjoyed his too. No extras this time, and the bill (with again 2 red wines and a large beer, plus a large bottle of water) was €32. Still a good dinner, but not quite up to the standard of our first visit despite the quality of the pizza. However I would definitely recommend this place.