Chez Black — Restaurant in Positano

Gian Franco Russo, of Chez Black, Positano, a racist or just plain stupid...???

Before I start, this review of this idiot is by no way any reflection on the 99.99% of the beautiful, hospitable people of Positano who have genuinely been most gracious and this one imbecile is not going to impact my return to Positano.

We had to cancel our reservations to Il Retrovo at the last minute as we got stuck in traffic coming back from Maori. We walked over around 9 pm to Chez Black and met Gian who, when approached asked, “No reservations, right?” I replied, “Yes”. He said, “We are booked, people are coming at 9:30pm”.My wife asked me to confirm, so I walked over to him and asked, “What time do you close? We can wait till later”. He replied, “Sorry, it is not possible. We close at 10:00.”

We looked at a few more restaurants and chose Covo Dei Saraceni hotel/restaurant because the outdoor seating was just beautiful (it is the closest to the sea except, maybe, Rada). You could literally smell the pier - and that is a good thing - pure ocean bliss! After a fantastic dinner, excellent drinks, and wonderful 3 hour service from gruff but sweetheart, humorous waiters we walked to the beach and then walked back home via Chez Black (its right next to the steps back home). At 12:15 am we were surprised to see that Chez Black was still up and running and serving its customers. I pointed to Gian Franco and asked for his name and the waiter gave it to me (Also confirmed his identity via his Instagram account).

We had such a good time at Covo Dei Saraceni that not being seated at Chez Black did not matter, but I thought I would atleast enlighten future travelers not to spend money where they are not welcome.

To the question whether Gian Franco Russo is racist or stupid, I would say “stupid” as he did not seem smart enough to be a racist.

Avoid Chez Black especially if he is around. La Pergola next door had the sweetest shrimp and tastiest tuna ceviche I have had. Drinks at Blu Bar a few steps down cannot be beat.

Amore Positano!

P.S: Just noticed the ratings for Chez Black on Google and Trip Advisor - does not need my review to warn people to...

Hands down the WORST experience of our month long Europe trip so far. We have made a rule that we won’t eat at tourist traps, we much prefer low key, authentic spots, but we made an exception for Chez Black as I made this reservation months ago.

We had a bad feeling that this was another terrible TikTok recommendation that would let us down but we thought we’d give it a go given it’s such a well-known restaurant.

To start, the food was overpriced for what it was, go two streets back and you will get the same menu for a fraction of the cost and where the food is actually cooked well.

The food was really bland and average, we compared it to an Italian franchise we have in Australia (Fratelli Fresh) which is shocking for a so called authentic Italian restaurant where you’re paying an exorbitant amount for pizza and pasta.

On top of all this, we had the most horrendous experience with the staff. We changed one of the items we had originally ordered and when the food came out, they delivered our original order as well as the new items we ordered. We let them know that the order was wrong and that we had canceled the lasagne. We had all the wait staff create a huge scene at the kitchen including the chef where they pointed at us and yelled in Italian. The entire restaurant stared at us as they pointed and screamed.

At the end of our meal, I let the manager know what happened and the response from him was, “they weren’t pointing at you, they were pointing at your table”. No apologies, nothing.

To top it all off they charged us twice, I processed the transaction and the money came off my card and then they claimed it didn’t go though despite the money being gone from my account. They made us pay twice so I’m still waiting for the first payment to be returned to me which they assured me it would - even if it is refunded it’s a massive inconvenience to have had to fork out twice the amount and now be waiting...

I went in knowing this is a bit of a tourist trap but still had decent expectations given the reviews I had read and its popularity. Suffice to say I was very let down. Let's start with the good - the atmosphere is 10/10, right next to the beach with a gorgeous view of the water if you get one of the front tables. It's busy and lively and just a great place to sit and have a meal. I will say we did sit in one of the first few rows of tables, if we had sat further back in the restaurant I wouldn't have liked it as much. Now on to the rest. Service was awful. Even at other restaurants in Italy with mediocre service we had far better experiences than we did here. Waitstaff essentially ignored us as we desperately tried to flag them down to get a dessert menu and order dessert. They'd walk right past, look at us, make eye contact, see us raise our hand and start speaking, and would move on. You'd think at such a popular place they'd be thrilled with people wanting to order the next course so they can have the table back and seat more people sooner. We got attitude for asking questions about the wines. Just frustrating overall. The food was so-so. I had the seafood pasta and I will admit it was very good. But my boyfriend had the lasagna and said it was worse than Olive Garden and had so much cheese it was inedible (which okay maybe ordering the lasagna was a mistake but it should at least be decent at a place like this). The dessert was trash, the profiteroles were thrown on the plate with no care and were stiff and tasted old like they'd just been sitting out all day, the only dessert in Italy I regretted ordering. Overall I can't recommend this place. If you're okay with mediocrity and bad service to spend a bunch of money to eat at the Insta famous place then by all means, but you can find far better food for the price in Positano (went to Da Vincenzo the next night and it was a world of...