La Campana — Restaurant in Orta San Giulio

The intimate, candlelit, covered area outside the restaurant attracted us as we headed past it for a stroll along the shores of Lake Orta. The skies were wonderfully dramatic as we walked alongside grand villas, beautiful gardens and lush vegetation, with the beauty of the lake to our right. The heavens opened and huge raindrops pounded down amid rolls of thunder and bright spears of lightning. We sheltered at a leafy lakeside seat until the storm subsided somewhat and headed back to La Campagna. We preferred to sit outside undercover, despite the continuing wild weather, and were cheerfully served by kind waiters who had to dodge the raindrops to bring us our meals from inside the restaurant, some feet away. It was a lovely place to dine and the food was delicious, plentiful and inexpensive, all in all excellent value. We were also welcomed in when we went to pay and offered limoncellos on the house, a tradition that, in my experience, rarely...

Visited twice... first time we ordered two dishes (a pasta and a pizza) and my partners dish arrived 30 mins before the pizza - they completely messed up the simplest order. The waiter was extremely apologetic and the pizza was actually good..... so good we decided to give this restuarant another try 2 nighs later. What an awful experience - a different surly waiter sat us on the same table as another family (the place was less than 20% full with plenty of spare tables) - then proceeded to take orders from two other tables who arrived after we did. After 10 mins waiting to even order drinks and water, we left without ordering. Nice food let down by poor staff. A shame for the owner and very...

Good food, calamarind lasagna and had no pizza !! Though we were initially attracted by the sign "Forno ...." , wood fired oven. Finished with a strong Cafe Correta, with a shot of grappa. Old couple manging with the old man being grumpy as if business was bad. Noticed this in many business and restaurants wheret the boss, chef walks around as if he dislikes his work and staff. Wish I had the right Italian words to reprimand them for their apparent ungratefulness and...