Ristorante Franchino — Restaurant in Praiano

Category: Fine Dining Hotel Restaurant, Tourist Area. For our last night in Praiano we dined at this white-tablecloth restaurant in the Hotel Onda Verde, where our friends dined before we arrived and brought us there because they liked it so much. If you take the long trek down (or up) the stairs and ramps to the marina, as we did many times during our visit, you will pass this restaurante and may assume from its outdoor tables that it’s a casual place with more view than substance, as I did. But for dinner we walked to the hotel’s impressive front entrance, took the elevator from Zero to -6 (maybe the only elevator in town?), walked through the corridor carved through solid rock, and emerged in the bright and elegant white dining room, where we were seated on this night that threatened rain. When our friends told us we would be dining here on our last night, I was hoping for one of the outdoor tables with the fantastic view, but I’m so glad we sat inside. It was dark and rainy outside so the view didn’t matter. I was pleased to see that the wine list was extensive but not expensive, offering plenty of bottles for under 40E, which is our sweetspot for restaurant wine. We started with a local Aglianico and later doubled it. The menu was not extensive but it was well curated. I started with the beautiful beef carpaccio, which I enjoyed after drizzles of olive oil and lemon and twists of S&P. Sarah and my friend loved their sauté of mussels, clams, and razor clams (we order razor clams wherever and whenever we find them). My other friend enjoyed his Callamaro alla Parmigiana, which was as well plated as it was delicious. For my main I chose the Black Squid with potato cream. Excellent. Sarah enjoyed the ravioli stuffed with beef (probably braised short rib) and onions (check out my short ribs ravioli lesson). I’m glad she let me taste it. My friend loved her crusted and perfectly seared tuna, which was also beautifully plated. My other friend ordered the spaghetti with lemon sauce and shrimps because he like it so much on his first visit to the restaurant. We finished with the light, airy, Amalfi Coast Lemon Cake. This was the best rendition we had of this ubiquitous local dessert. The service was excellent, both efficient and friendly, with much appreciated humor. YouTube’s...

We traveled here mainly due to the excellent reviews. What a huge mistake. Restaurant as such and the view is excellent. However these exists everywhere on the Amalfi coast.

This is a hotel pretending to be a restaurant, the kitchen tries to match the hotel and fails miserably.

We cook a lot of food ourselves, risotto, pastas you name it, always made from scratch. Amalfi impressed us a lot, inspired us a lot. But not here.

Service: although we booked for 5 and came as 4 they called us lucky because they just received a cancellation. We have empty tables around us the whole time. They forgot the drinks to the kids twice and told us it was on its way, it arrived when food was all consumed. Still they requested 16 EUR Coperto which is essentially an illegal fee.

Food: it looks pretty, but 100 ml risotto with 5 minimal shrimps, I’m talking about less then half a normal shrimp, a vague taste of lemon, DOES NOT CUT IT, don’t waste our time.

The homemade ravioli tasted too little, but ok, still looked pretty. Absolutely not worth its price.

No wine as glasses on the menu, you had to ask for it.

We paid 158 EUR for 20 min of poor rude service and well below average taste.

The evening before we spent 100 EUR and had one of the top 10 meals of our life and an amazing view, live music, excellent quality from real chefs.

Follow my profile and you will find the good places there, will post in a few hours, just had to get this horrible disappointment...

A restaurant with lovely views, fine dining cuisine, and nice service. If you are looking for traditional local cuisine, then this might not be the top choice for you. But if you are looking for fine cuisine that is expertly cooked and very well presented then this restaurant should be top of your list. The fact that we were staying at the Hotel Onda Verde made it easier for us. The views are spectacular. The oyster appetizer was one of the best I have had 5/5. The lemon risotto was visually stunning and was good, but a little too sour after taking a few bites 3/5. The mezzo pacheri was spectacular 5/5, even though we thought the pasta was more on the "dente" side of al dente. The sea bass was expertly cooked, but the dish maybe needed a little more pizzaz 4/5. The pasta vongole was delicious 5/5. The ragu bolognese was very tomatoey, but we are in one of the premier tomato growing areas of the world so it is expected that the style of ragu would be different than that of Emilia-Romagna 4/5. The wine list was exhaustive and had many wines at reasonable prices. The service was attentive and helpful with suggestions, but not chatty. The seating stalls on the side of the passage were very cute and IG worthy. Overall a good experience. Pro tip would be to have some bug spray handy because after dark there could be some pesky mosquitoes as interested in you as you are in the...