Lo Sparviero

Our daughter & BF flew in on Saturday evening for a 5-night stay with us, landing at Naples 10 minutes earlier than their scheduled 8.25 pm arrival, so we were back at Il Sogno by 11 pm & sitting on the terrace having a cuppa & making introductions to Cupcake. It was a late night for everyone (except for me, the insomniac of the family) as we all saw midnight before hubby turned in, closely followed by Flik's BF &, finally, Flik herself. I was last to go in search of Morpheus, as usual.

Sunday was set to be a lazy day - apart from a quick dash to La Torretta for a coffee, we spent the day on the terrace, chatting, reading & having a leisurely lunch & planning our evening. Flik & the BF are big on scuba diving so we'd got to go into town to see Natalino at Cilento Sub dive centre & check that they'd still be OK to dive on Monday & Tuesday, so the plan was to go in just after 7 pm, see if Natalino was about, then head to Lo Sparviero for dinner. Lo Spaviero is the newest fish restaurant to open Santa Maria(apologies for calling it 'La Cuopperia' in an earlier blog, we didn't spot the high level sign on our first visit & the menu doesn't have the restaurant's name on it) & has a lovely location on Marina Piccola, ideal for watching the summer sunset.

Linguine, zucchine e scampi

Having had a bit of difficulty finding somewhere to park (always a nightmare in August), we walked down to the dive centre to find it in darkness so carried on to Marina Piccola & Lo Sparviero. Yet again we were the first to arrive & could have the pick of whichever 4 seater table we wanted. Sitting upstairs affords a better view of the setting sun, so we duly chose a table by the huge floor standing fan - bliss on a hot August evening!

There ensued great debate over what to order from the menu, asking the waiter for his recommendation and my stipulation that we each try a different dish so that I'd have 4 dishes to photograph for my blog. I decided to 'play safe' and stick with the linguine dish I'd had on our first visit. Hubby & I both love swordfish, so he went with the waiter's recommendation of Spada alla Cilentana - swordfish cooked with olives & tomatoes in a bain marie.

Spada alla Cilentana

Flik chose Orata al Limone - sea bream in lemon sauce - & her BF was persuaded by the waiter to try the Scialatelle e Scoglio - handmade fresh spaghetti-like pasta with a selection of shellfish.

Orata al Limone

Peroni & a glass of vino bianco to hand for the BF & myself, 2 bottles of acqua gassata for all 4 of us to share, we sat to chatting & waiting for our meals to arrive. The wait seemed interminable; after a while a complimentary dish of zeppole was placed before us (deep fried batter 'puff balls'). Of course, the long wait was down to the fact that everything is freshly prepared & we had each ordered a different dish - the sign of a good restaurant.

Scialiatelle e Scoglio

A huge basket of fresh bread & a plate of grilled zucchine e melanzane arrived at the table, another Peroni & a glass of wine were ordered, 'buon appetito' was said by one & all and we duly tucked into what we all agreed was one of the best dinners we'd ever had.