CAPRICCIO ITALIANO — Restaurant in Olhão

Charming little Italian restaurant, run by a delightful couple. Just a few tables out on the street and the food is very good value. I love Italian food and visit Italy regularly, so it came as a bit of a shock that I didn't like any of the 4 courses I had here, I'm afraid.

The bruschetta was smothered in garlic, which was so bitter, it actually burnt your mouth. Almost inedible. The Caprese salad was utterly bland - slices of tomato, with a slice of cheese and a single basil leaf on top, plus a drizzle of olive oil. The main course, pasta and shrimp was well cooked, but dry and tasteless. No sauce and virtually no shrimp. Ridiculous, bearing in mind the proximity of the excellent local seafood market. The desert tiramisu was OK, but heavy on the alcohol, without much coffee flavour. These things are all personal preference, but having eaten all over Italy in the past 20 years, I would say that each course was fundamentally 'wrong'.

I wish I'd had the meat sharing platter, which looked very good.

I really wanted to like this place and I can't bring myself to give it a bad review score because the couple running it were so lovely and likeable. However, on the evidence of the food I ate, I would strongly suggest that they give up the hassle of running a restaurant (do they need it at their age?) and concentrate on their...

Very nice people, Italians, trying to make a living, but I was not at all impressed. The prices look appetizing at first glance, but you get what you pay for.

For example, L'insalata Caprese (€6) usually costs €8-€12 elsewhere, but what we got was, maybe, two small tomatoes and one €1.25 ball of mozzarella out of a package from Pingo Doce with a little olive oil and diced basil.

My wife ordered the Ricotta and Spinach Ravioli (€10) in a butter and sage sauce which was half a bag of Pingo Doce's €3.50 tortelloni, not ravioli, you get the drill.

I decided to try the Porchetta (€7), a huge, tender pork loin rolled with herbs and spices, wrapped in the pork skin, and baked at low temperature for hours (see photo), but what arrived at the table was razor thin slices of fatty pork, again, probably from Pingo Doce.

The highlight of our meal was our server, Ravi.

We were satiated, but disappointed. Being married to a Sicilian and having spent many years in and eaten untold numbers of great meals in Italy, I expected much more from the Italian owners. Sorry, only the truth from this guy,

CombatCritic Gives Carpiccio Italiano 3 Bombs Out Of 10 ... More...

I use this acronym lightly but OMG! We found the most incredible Italian restaurant. After an 8.5 !hour drive from Spain we arrived in rainy and rather dark Ohlaño. We dropped off our luggage and headed out for dinner. After a downhill walk where I stepped in EVERY puddle, we ended up in this awesome neighborhood restaurant. The owner was friendly and sang to us in Italian. The son (?) laughed and all of my corny jokes and the granddaughter was as nice as the day is long. The food was beyond amazing. I had pasta with zucchini and shrimp and my wife had Carbonara. It was only overshadowed by the wonderful Italian wine we had. All this with beers and an app came to leas than 50€. Our...