La Capinera — Restaurant in Taormina

Dinned here on a Weekday night. The service by some of the staff was absolutely flawless. However when eating the set menu, I found it to be average.

Even though the 4 little starters weren't 1 of the 6 dishes, they were horrible. The ricotta canolli was stale and mushy, and the arinchni tasted like it had been sitting there all day. The tomato soup was far from pleasant, and there was some sort of chip that tasted like cough medicine. Could't eat any of it. Don't serve it if it isn't quality.

The first starter had a mixture of 4 raw seafood. Kingfish, prawn, squid & and tuna. The Prawn was the highlight of that dish, and the squid was prepared and presented lovely.

The next dish was a gropper with a mint sauce and a separate beetroot sauce. The gropper was pleasant to eat, and I would eat that again.

I was begging for some michelin product in this dish. However, I got the opposite. The scallops should have been cooked a bit more. It lacked texture. The emulsified eggplant was okay, but I think there were raw red peppercorns that hindered the whole plate.

The seafood with Tumeric spaghetti. The spaghetti by itself was cooked great however lacked so much Italian flavour. I don't know if there are any Scilian ties with India but this tasted like a bland yellow yellow noodle curry...

Catch of the day. John Dory. Nothing memorable to report as it was bland besides what I believe the Pesto side that delivered the body.

There was a palette cleanser for dessert, which was a tomato sorbet with olive bread. I respect that there is some dancing with flavours, and the technique to produce the sorbet was delivered perfectly, but it tasted exactly like the cold tomato soup that we had for the starter. We asked the waiter for an alternative as we couldn't stomach it and he kindly gave us the mandarin sorbet which saved that section.

This dessert saved the review from getting 1 star. The dessert was a deconstructed canolli and something that slightly reassembled a pavalova. The ice cream was very nice, as were the dried fruits and chewy jellys all combined with the sweet ricotta.

It may have been an off night, but there are no excuses if you have a michelin hat and are charging 100 Euro for a set menu that left me a my partner disappointed and let down.

The front of house were very lovely but the food didn't deliver. If I were to ever come again, it would be a for a weekend lunch after the menu has been reviewed so I could soak...

This is in my opinion not a Michelin star restaurant. I have been to several. Food was good, but not Michelin level. I believe it’s overpriced. Normally I wouldn’t write this review as I only feel like writing a review if I am very impressed or extremely disappointed. In La Capinera, the overall meal was good, but when prices are at Michelin level without delivering a Michelin experience I think it’s useful to share my experience with other travelers. High prices can be acceptable if location is stunning. This restaurant is somewhat trafficked with a terrace situated in between a main road and train tracks (four/five trains passed during our dinner). However, the view overlooking the sea is beautiful, if you take away the background noise from the traffic. Toilettes are not spotless and have an automatic lighting that turn off if you don’t move. Not very pleasant and I had to walk well into the dark room in the basement before the light switched on. The best quality of the restaurant was the service by the staff. Although, when asking the Michelin restaurant to order a taxi, we got a local non registered person that didn’t accept card payment and became very unpleasant. Overall a restaurant not delivering according to expectations and the first true disappointment traveling throughout Italy with the family for the...

Absolutely horrible experience in every way! The food would not be overpriced if it was good, but unfortunately that was not the case. It was kinda ok, so I guess if you don’t mind paying a lot for not great, overpriced food, then this is the place for you. The main courses, duck and amberjack were both over cooked. The seafood mix was ok but not wow. The red shrimp appetiser encrusted with sesame was ok but completely covered the taste of the shrimp. The whole point of eating red shrimp is for its sweet freshness. The fresh mix seafood was also ok, no wow factor either. I asked for a glass of champagne and got organic Alsace sparkling which also was just ok but paid for the price of champagne. Not sure if the chef actually thought we don’t know what great food and wine is and had to be guided by him or what. He did not allow us to choose our own bottle of wine, he just assumed that we would like what he chose and said here it is, no options, nothing. Arrogance can be a killer. So can bad reviews. Having eaten in some of the best restaurants in the world, this place is a must miss. Many more examples, like asking for the bill 3 times over 15 mins and still had to chase it up again! They have waiters, just not well trained...