Il Giardino degli Aranci — Restaurant in Ischia

AN ABSOLUTE MUST DO while visiting Ischia! I found this restaurant by complete coincidence while walking up from the beach and me and my group of friends had lunch there. The food was excellent, the waitresses so nice and helpful with their advices and recommendations, and chef Antonio so welcoming and devoted - I was a bit struggling to open my lobster and he came to do it in person for me. They told us they had some entertainment at night so we decided to try it for dinner the day after. You really need to make a reservation if you're going at night - there was only one table free and we were visiting outside of the high season. The food and service were as for the first time impeccable. That night was truly the highlight of our trip - we got to enjoy what seems to be called postaggia napoletana - a repertoire of popular Napoletan songs. Vittorio is a virtuoso of the guitar and has a breathtaking tenor voice - it was truly enchanting listening to him all night long. He also has a good foreign repertoire and sang for us in French and Spanish as well. He was accompanied by an incredible artist named Francesco who wore several costume of theater folklore and engaged with the audience in a type of popular theater. Vittorio and Francesco are true artists - you can truly feel their dedication and passion throughout the night. We were a group of French, Spanish and English speaker and I have a minimal understanding of Italian but I still understood bits of the spectacle here and there. No matter if you speak Italian or not - I highly recommend you go as you will enjoy it either way. We were visiting for our friend's 30th birthday and our night at Il Giardino Degli Aranci really made it memorable. Thank you Vittorio and Francesco for the unforgivable memories and for sharing your art and talent so...

If you could assign less than one star I would describe the situation of this "restaurant" better. Il giardino degli aranci (which only has fake plastic oranges attached to trees) is a classic tourist trap. It's a scam and an offence to the region of Campania and Italian cuisine in general! Pizza (in Campania where Naples resides, they should be able to make pizza, you would expect?) was a rubbery mass of pasta and mozzarella without flavor. The paccheri (pasta) with four tiny pieces of fish and a numbered amount of pieces of cherry tomato only 'tasted' of the cream they had to put to replace the real sauce. The basic service charge (coperto) that in all other restaurants is maximum 2 euros in the Garden of Plastic Oranges is 3 euros. The paccheri, which in an excellent restaurant like Pane e vino (highly recommended) costs 10 euro and are full of beautiful flawours, in the garden of scams costs 14 euro!

When the elderly owner saw we weren't eating, he made a point of so many people eating those dishes there. No one asked us how we could be satisfied and the daughter of the owner who had served us from the beginning then sent another girl to bring us the bill. If you really were committed to serve good food, you would be interested to know why customers leave their plates nearly untouched, right?

Ischia is full of places where you eat in an exquisite way; avoid this fake-restaurant where everything is faked from food to oranges...

I went to the Restaurant today, and all I can say is stay away from this place If you want to get something eatable not only music. I ordered swordfish and it was definitely not fresh, I couldnt swallow its taste made me immidietly nausea. I told in a very polite to wairess that I am afraid that this fish is not fresh cause I know this fish very well and it tastes not good at all I also asked my friend for opinion and she was had exactly same feelings. The waitress laughed at me and said that If I dont like it I can say but this fish is fresh, I said that she can try it cause I barely touch it but it is not fresh. She answered that it is fresh for sure and she think that I just dont like fish and I can say it. And she left. Fortunatelly we didnt have to pay for that fish but whole experience was really not nice. Also before ordering fish I asked If there are any gluten free options and waitress answer was simply - no.

Music was nice but the service and...