Cicciotto dal 1942 — Restaurant in Naples

What a strange experience we just had. I emailed the restaurant to ask for a reservation for 7:30 the following night. They promptly responded to confirm. The night of our dinner, we showed up a few minutes before 7:30 - which it says is the opening time of the restaurant - and sat down to wait. People were milling around inside getting set up, and slowly more people started showing up to wait outside. At 7:30, nothing happened. A group of waiters was hanging around outside alongside my group and the others waiting. They avoided eye contact. Didn’t say anything to any of the customers. Just shuffled around looking surly. A little after 8pm, one of our party went and asked if we could be seated since we had a 7:30 reservation (mind you, nobody had gone inside the restaurant yet). The server said basically, “of course, we are open! Come on in!” So this means for over 30 minutes the staff of this restaurant watched a small crowd build up outside waiting to get in, stood around outside doing nothing, and waited until somebody asked to make any indication they were open!?!?

When we finally went inside we were basically left to our own devices to choose a table. I saw what appeared to be a hostess, who did nothing at all the whole time we were there. The rest of our experience was totally bizarre. All of the staff of this place seem pissed off, and like anything asked of them is an imposition. Every interaction with staff was rushed and cold. The atmosphere felt totally off. People were constantly walking back and forth around our table, doing basically nothing, or talking on the phone, or vaping - there were so many people working there yet it seemed like nobody cared about the diners. The music was a repeating playlist of maybe 5 songs. The view was amazing, for sure.

Our food was fine, nothing special, probably towards the bottom of our meals in Napoli. Portions were small and expensive.

I don’t know if our strange experience was due to us being foreigners and not speaking Italian - we saw plenty of people come in later who were greeted and seated quickly - but the initial strangeness of nobody knowing if they were open seemed to affect everyone there. It seems the people running this restaurant and working there have no desire to cater to tourists, which is fine I guess. Clearly the place has been there a long time and has a loyal clientele. I would just warn other people to expect bad, borderline mean servers, a generally strange atmosphere, good views, and...

Best meal of my life anywhere. Recommended by a local who set us up, we think with his table because a little after we arrived, two model looking women, and a distinguished looking gentleman arrived. Some other people started working the room setting up the area in front of a flat screen where the futbol match was playing. We are huge futbol fans and we were enjoying seeing the match while having a world class meal. A little while later, a Napoli futbol legend showed up and was seated in the same room with that group. I don't think he was too happy about it because we probably looked like fans. We were not dressed for the occasion. This futbol star and Napoli legend had words with one of the guys, assumably in his crew, that had been lingering about the room setting things up prior to the futballer's arrival. He pointed in our direction and said Napoli something or other in Italian (I assume) and then left. The guy he had been talking to looked a little despondent. A little later the group moved. I guess we must have smelled a little too much like poor? Nonetheless we were treated first-class by the staff who admittedly seemed a little nervous afterwards. I hope we didn't ruin the futballer's night too much, I'm sure he gets a lot of hassle and was looking to spend a nice night with his family or whoever it was he was with, and then he saw some tourists dressed in rain gear in an otherwise empty room away form the busy restaurant, one of us were even wearing a Napoli jersey... He didn't seem pleased but we sure were pleased with the meal, the service and the atmosphere (disturbed only slightly by the disgruntled futboller's dealings with...

Our experience here was our only negative experience in Italy! If you are not Italian be aware the restaurant is looking to take advantage of you. They are not happy enough you are there as a customer, they want too steal more from you! We were seated but not handed menus like all the other customers. We had to use a QR code on our phones. They sent the English speaking waiter over who spoke very well until you tried to ask questions and then he didn’t understand. Even when using a google translate app he still “didn’t” understand. He spoke very fast and tried to order for the table. He kept telling us what we all needed and was trying too send out two of all of their expensive appetizers. We said no to many things and the things we did order we asked for one of each. He still brought out multiple or added multiple to the bill after we only had one order brought to the table. It was clear this was a theatrical performance targeting tourists to steal from them. The restaurant did remove some of the double appetizers from the bill but we still had more food brought to us than we ordered. The food quality was not amazing. There was also a couple from Ireland close to us who had the same waiter and similar experience. We never saw this waiter with any of the other tables (Italians) and in fact we never saw him any where in the restaurant the rest of our dinner after his theater performance at the beginning where he was taking advantage of us. If you decide to go there and you see the guy from the photo, beware because he will take your money and ruin...