La Vinicola — Restaurant in Pompei

Good pasta, atrocious wine We were in a hurry to leave Pompei, and didn't have a great deal of time to find another restaurant nearby, so as we were in the center anyway (and this was really all that was around) we popped in for a quick lunch. I was put off by the fact that they had servers out front coaxing tourists to come in (never a good sign of a good quality restaurant, and usually a sign of bad food), and then also to see that they had very little on the menu, and in addition, a TV on in the restaurant. I find the latter terribly tacky and so many restaurants here in Italy do that. It's a distraction, and I don't think most people like it.

My date and I both had the bowe-tie pasta with salmon and it was really quite good (I think they could have mentioned however that it was prepared with onions, which is unusal for the dish) and that it didn't have panna (which the receipe usually calls for). The wine I ordered was horrendous, and I don't think i had more than three sips throughout the course of my meal.

The atmosphere was nothing special, and the service simply average.

All in all, not a bad place but not somewhere I would recommend going. If you dig around and have time to go wander around Pompei (and more than anything if you have a car to get around outside of the center) I'm sure you can find...

I'm surprised by the many negative reviews. Having arrived in the city quite late on a Sunday evening, we weren't yet familiar with the area. The restaurant in front of our hotel may have looked nice, but it was much too expensive for us. Just a few meters away, in the direction of the church and train station, we saw this place offering a fixed menu for 15 euro. The waiter and other staff couldn't have been nicer! There were only a few other tables occupied. I don't know if that is what made our experience so different from many others. We received proper attention and service throughout the meal and the waiter was friendly enough to initiate a conversation with us. The fettuccine Bolognese was delicious and seemed homemade! The portions were good and everything was done in a timely manner. In my opinion, there were only two drawbacks: firstly, there weren't many choices on the menu which could be a sore point for tourists looking for an authentic experience and secondly, although we were in an outdoor seating area, it seemed as if we were inside as there was little breeze to help with the heat. Overall, a very...

After 5 hours of taking in the history of the archeological site of Pompeii the vegetarian and I were peckish. Deciding against the drive back into Napoli we ventured towards the 'new' town centre of Pompeii. On street parking was easy to find and after a short stroll we came across the trattoria La Vinicola. The menu is fairly extensive, and as is the norm in Italy establishing what's 100% vegetarian can be a challenge. Luckily a waiter spoke excellent English so all was good. We were seated under an awning full covered by a tree growing within the courtyard. The vegetarian went with the Ricotta & Spinach ravioli (with chips.....just don't 😆) and I was all over the parmagianno along with gnocchi in s white sauce with clams. So fresh, 100% homemade and really yummy. Total price including 3 sodas was €31. As always you might wonder why only 4*. Well, a good few of my clams hadn't open, but I certainly wasn't going to make a fuss about that. Around the site of Pompeii you will get ripped off massively with the prices (and attempts to short change you). Venture into the town (Centro) and I'm certain you'll be...