L’Osteria — Restaurant in Monterosso al Mare

We stopped in about 10 minutes before they opened and were lucky enough to reserve a table for that night. This cute hole-in-the-wall was one of our favorite restaurants of our two-week trip! We got a traditional anchovy-and-potato dish to start (it's typically an entree but we both wanted to try it), the seafood pasta and the pesto gnocchi. The pasta was amazing, but oh boy - the gnocchi was to DIE FOR!! I can count on one hand the number of times I've had a dish where every bite is as good as the first, and this one tops the charts. The gnocchi itself was perfectly pillowy and light. The pesto blew my mind. I knew Cinque Terre was known for its pesto, and while I love pesto, I was wondering how much better it could get. If you want to know how much, go here and order this dish!! It's rich yet light and just packed with flavor. I wish I could replicate it to eat to my heart's content but know it would never be the same. I will just keep it in my memory bank of one of my most favorite dishes ever! (Side note on the seafood pasta - be careful not to eat any clams or mussels that haven't opened all the way! I was so distracted by how good everything tasted that I wasn't paying attention and just kept prying them open. My stomach punished me later but the taste...

Excellent! 🤩 This place is popular for a reason and gets booked up pretty quick so if you are a walk in, bare in mind that there might not be a table available. We actually ended up reserving a table on our last day right after our first dining experience there!

The atmosphere is great with nice decor and wine bottles stacked on the walls, me and my mum particularly enjoyed that there was Italian music playing in the background. Most places try to cater to english speaking tourists by playing more common top chart tunes which takes all the authenticity out of the experience. It was a nice surprise 😊

Both times our meals were fantastic in presentation and tasted amazing. I had catch of the day with vegetables first and second time seafood stuffed pasta. The food was out in reasonable time and the servers, while not too attentive, were quite prompt with any enquiries. I would also highly recommend to try the local...

I woud give zero star if I could. I am very glad that I went to this people for tasting before taking anyone. The rating was good but since it isn’t the cheapest place around, I wanted to make sure before proper dinner. I order Ravioli with seabass and shrimps. It took less than 5 min before my food arrived after the order. (dodgy already) First, it was king prawns not shrimps and they were undercooked. The sauce was light and had no taste. I was not happy and honestly was convinced that I should stop eating and go somewhere else. Then I chewed a small chunk of sea bass, again undercooked. My mouth became too gross and had to leave immediately. I can understand from business perspective that one person’s pasta dish does not contribute a lot. I have visited cinque terre multiple times for hiking purpose but these kinds of places ruin the reputation of italians’ passion and...