La Sponda — Restaurant in Positano

The service and atmosphere were great. Live music and serenades were beautiful. The staff truly tries to make an enjoyable experience for all of the guests. And obviously the restaurant is gorgeous, especially at night.

Unfortunately the food left much to be desired for us. We had a better food experience at Simone's Sandwiches off the main road in Positano. Truly.

The crab appetizer tasted basic. Just cold crab in a salty sauce. The combination of the cold crab and cold lettuce was odd. We ordered 2 pastas. One was truffle ravioli and the other was a calamari rigatoni. This is where the food tasted the worst. Both pasta dishes lacked flavor. As someone who loves truffle, I found the truffle topping to be too much and too chalky for such a delicate ravioli (which was more like a small dumpling). Further, the truffle flavor hardly came through the sauce. The calamari pasta had an unpleasant fishy taste and also lacked any flavor. It was a watery soupy mess. The quality of these dishes were shocking to us for such a highly ranked restaurant. We could not finish either of these dishes, including the appetizer, because of how horrible they were.

Thankfully, the staff was very understanding and took our plates. When the meat dishes came out, the experience started to become better. We had the sea bass and the chicken. Although these were both better seasoned and had more congruent textures, there still was no added or unique flavor in the food. At this point we were just hungry and happy to eat something we could at least start to enjoy.

We decided to order 2 desserts because of the previous failed foods. Chocolate souffle and tiramisu tart. I'd personally skip the tiramisu. The tart crust is basic and distracting from the tiramisu, which was nothing special. The chocolate souffle however definitely lifted our spirits and I would recommend it. Warm, rich, yet also light with a delicious vanilla ice cream on top.

Standard complements include a small appetizer (we had muscles in sauce, which seemed to only have salt for flavor), lemoncello at the end, and a mini tower of small cookies also at the end.

The staff kindly took the pasta dishes off of our bill, which we did not ask for, and, to our surprise, complemented the desserts we ordered. Overall, if it weren't for the amazing service, we probably would not have been able to leave somewhat happy. However, unless the menu or dishes change, we will likely not be coming back to...

We ate here several times while staying at Le Sirenuse and it was really good. I give it a 5/5 for service and atmosphere as it truly is one of the most beautiful restaurants I’ve ever seen with a magnificent view of Positano. The service here is top notch and spot on with any high caliber restaurant experience I have been to, but you also pay for it. Without the service and atmosphere being this good, I would have actually given this place a 3 or 4 star review based on my first meal. We selected the tasting menu on our first dinner here and we were not that impressed, especially for what it cost and the food quailty and quantity that we experienced. The opening chef’s appetizer was ehh.. next came the tuna with a fairly strong fish smell and taste, ehh.. then a morsel of the sea bass which was good but way too small. Then the pork which was also good but far too little. Finally the dessert which was good. Thankfully they give you plenty of extra bread and a final dessert or we would have left and got more food. That experience, food wise was not worth the price paid. But having top notch service, kind and attentive waiters, live music that floated between tables, a beautiful view- that kept it at a passing grade. The next evening we opted to select our own foods in lieu of the tasting menu and were much more pleased! We went with the ravioli which were decadent! Then we enjoyed the suckling pig thigh which was cut and plated at the table. That was truly fantastic and was the saving grace to forget about the previous nights affairs and give this restaurant the full 5 stars. The pork was absolutely mouth watering delicious. Definitely do not come here with a budget or you will leave only affording a drink as it is an expensive restaurant but as stated, the experience...

Food was definitely delicious but extremely over priced and not worth the cost. We ordered two cocktails, amberjack ossobucco and the ribeye for 2, followed by the tiramisu.

Amberjack: light, fresh, good to share as an appetizer which is what we did for 2 people.

Ribeye for 2: what was upsetting is that they cut the steak incorrectly off of the bone and when they sliced it so that when you chew it, it was quite tough. Some pieces were good but not most of it sadly. Over half of the ribeye was straight fat as well. Just felt like a waste of food. It did however come with a bunch of sides like vegetables and potatoes which were good.

Tiramisu: this is probably the only item we would come back for. It was Devine.

Service: staff was friendly, live music playing which was nice but in the beginning they were asking every 2 minutes if we had chosen a cocktail it felt quite rushed. However toward the end they provided a piece of almond cake, limoncello and two small tarts as a congrats for our honeymoon which was kind of them.

Ambiance: it’s definitely a very fancy dinner place, dress well for this restaurant.

Other comments: We thought maybe because I was in a casual dress and my husband was in a short sleeve shirt with pants we were seated in the back next to where the staff puts down used plates… who knows but definitely ask to be seated next to the window next time because it was quite annoying to have plates constantly moving behind us (within 5 inches) of our backs.

All in all 3/5. If you want a meal worth every penny, go to Restaurante...