Trattoria Castel Nuovo — Restaurant in Naples

The waiters in this establishment reeked of blatant misogyny. Careful to people with a gluten intollerance.

I will write my review in English first to warn all tourists of this place, especially women. Even though I am Italian myself, I was with a group of friends that speak primarily English and I truly believe we were discriminated because of this. We are a group of young women who live in Rome, this will be relevant for the latter part of this review. When ordering our food we spoke primarily in Italian and clearly showed on our phones what dishes from the menu we wanted, who was gluten free and described this in detail. We waited over 30 minutes for our food to arrive but this is not the worst of our problems with this restaurant. One of the gluten free dishes we ordered was the wrong dish, we ordered fettuccine with salmon and spaghetti alla bolognese came back to us despite the person who ordered this not eating meat. We raised this concern with the waiter who was serving us, (tall, large and round face, dark hair and beard), but instead of apologising for the mistake we all knew he made, he decided to almost yell at the person who ordered this dish and insist that he couldnt throw this away despite him getting the order wrong. He raised his voice at us in front of the other clients at this restaurant and pressured the person who ordered the dish into keeping it despite them making it clear they do not eat meat. He was the rudest waiter that I have ever experienced. The other waiter (a bit shorter than the other one, ginger hair and beard) was nicer but still complied to him, but i'll get on to him later. Me and another person had order the fried calamari and shrimp which were actually very tasty, but the other person found a piece of string (not similar to any clothing we had) on their plate as well as a hair not belonging to any of us. The hair was very short and a very dark brown. I have the shortest hair out of the group but mine is a clearly fiery red. I was also on the other side of the table from the person who found it so it couldn't have possibly flown all the way there. Another thing that arrived was gluten free bread, and while we appreciated the care put on the gluten free people in our group, we couldnt help but notice that one of the pieces of bread given to a person was clearly green with mould. The fettuccine with salmon was also slightly too salty for our tastes and left a very dry sensation in the mouth. We were looking up restaurant reviews on google to see if anyone else had a similar experience to us with service and found a couple with mentions of racism. We looked around and the only person of colour in the restaurant was in our group. We do not know if this is relevant or not but it seemed suspicious to us.

But the real (bad) highlight of our lunch was at the very end. After we had paid, we decided to cross the road and collect ourselves since we had luggages to carry. One of my friends was wearing a skirt and it was a particularly windy day. Her skirt was flapping up and she was trying to put it down without anyone noticing. The two waiters who served us had the audacity, even while i was staring at them from across the street, to STARE AT HER LEGS and, during such a vulnerable moment for a woman, LAUGH to themselves about her struggling to keep her skirt down. I have never seen two waiters with less decency and respect for women in my whole life. This is a warning to all groups of women to NEVER STEP FOOT IN THIS RESTAURANT.

Siccome sono italiana, qua sotto scriverò anche in italiano. Questo ristorante non è adatto a gruppi di giovani donne e possibilmente anche a persone di colore. Traducete tutto su google per capire come questo posto ci ha trattato. Attenzione anche alle...

I am writing to express my deep concern and disappointment regarding an incident of racial discrimination that my companions and I experienced at your establishment on the evening of July 16th at approximately 10:30 PM.

During our visit, we encountered unacceptable behavior from one of your staff members, a heavyset male server. From the moment we began ordering, he exhibited peculiar expressions and frequently rolled his eyes at us. Additionally, he did not offer us any water, which is a basic courtesy in any dining experience.

Despite this, we remained polite and proceeded with our meal. Our total bill amounted to $120, and we even left a $12 tip out of respect for the service industry. However, when we attempted to pay using Apple Pay, we encountered a technical issue that temporarily prevented the transaction from going through. We immediately resolved the issue by using a different card, but throughout this brief period, the server continued to make derogatory comments, suggesting our card was inadequate and that we were wasting his time. His demeanor remained hostile and dismissive throughout the evening, clearly displaying a prejudiced attitude towards us.

This experience was deeply upsetting and left us feeling unwelcome and discriminated against. Such behavior is not only unprofessional but also entirely unacceptable in a diverse and inclusive society. We have decided not to return to your establishment, as no customer should have to endure such treatment.

I urge you to address this issue seriously and ensure that all staff members are trained to provide respectful and non-discriminatory service to every customer, regardless of their background.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. I hope that you will take appropriate action to prevent such incidents from occurring...

Myself and my family (parents and 2 grown siblings) visited Castel Nuovo on the recommendation of our tour guide. We had a fantastic experience here!!

I speak a little Italian, so was able to ask for a table without an issue and do some very basic communication with our servers, but I probably should have been upfront and spoken in English because our initial server only spoke just a little bit of English, so after our first interaction he went and got the head waiter to come serve us 😅 my bad honestly, but our first server was perfectly lovely and polite about it.

Fabrizio was our main server for the night, and he took such good care of us!! He was very knowledgeable and personable, absolutely we had such a good time with him. He recommended some local wines, insisted we try a caprese salad and served it to us himself. He explained all about the difference between mozzarella and buffalo mozzarella, and why the pizza in Naples is so good. Then he continued to check in on us throughout our meal, and he was so chuffed to hear how good the pizza was. He also brought us some meloncello on the house to finish our meal!

And it was damn good pizza too. And the best mozzarella I've ever had. And the tomatoes were so flavorful and fresh!! It was probably the best Italian eating experience I've had so far, and my whole family are not excited about trying to eat pizza again when we're back in England 🥲 it is just not going to be the same!!

I'd highly recommend this restaurant. We had a wonderful time, the prices were super affordable (about €7 per pizza, and they were big pizzas), and the location is very accessible and convenient. Thanks again for a perfect lunch for our day...