Bar Gino
An Italian restaurant story.
I was spending a few days on the beautiful island of Ischia in the Gulf of Naples with my best friends. It was a bright, sunny Italian vacation spot, and we were loving our time on the island. One morning I felt the tug of adventure and decided to hop on a ferry for the nearby island of Procida. Procida is much smaller than Ischia and feels a bit like stepping back in time to an old Italian fishing village.
Because of its size, there are only a few ferries between the two islands in a day. One of my friends decided to tag along, and we hopped on the morning ferry which would give us a few hours to explore before catching the early afternoon ferry back. We walked as much of the charming city center of Procida as possible until it was time to catch the afternoon ferry back to Ischia.
It was a morning perfectly spent, and I highly recommend doing the same if you’re ever visiting Ischia; but by the time we arrived back on Ischia we were starving. We decided to throw all caution into the wind, ignore our Google Maps, and pop into the beachside cafe we saw near the ferry terminal. It was called Bar Gino.
We were the last to arrive at the party— Bar Gino does indeed feel like a party— and there were no tables left. Italian families and groups of friends were cozied up to the plastic tables. One giant group spanned the length of the restaurant, a term that feels like a misnomer as Bar Gino is entirely open air; it’s more like a deck. Bar Gino clings onto a slope above the tiny beach. Beyond the beach, diners have an unobstructed view of a sparkling Gulf of Naples. It feels more like a back porch at someone’s home than a restaurant.
To complete the effect, Gino himself greeted us, his larger-than-life personality setting the tone for his eatery. Gino was chagrined when he had no available tables to offer us, but he assured us he would figure it out. In the blink of an eye, he made the hostess station disappear, pilfered one of the tables from the middle of the giant group’s long table, made them scoot together, carried the table over the heads of the other diners, and created the perfect spot for my friend and me to enjoy our lunch in the doorway. We were delighted, and Gino was openly proud of his own problem solving skills.
The happy sounds of Italian conversation floated over us as we scanned the menu. My attention was immediately snagged by the bruschette which sounded like the perfect light lunch on a very sunny seaside day. I couldn’t stop reading the description of toasted bread, buffalo mozzarella, homegrown tomatoes, fresh basil, and local olive oil. Though they had several types of bruschette on the menu, I couldn’t drag my attention away from this simple combination. My mouth began to water. I looked up at my friend; she was enamored by the same menu item as me. We shrugged and each ordered one plus a side of fries for good measure.
As soon as our food arrived we began to laugh. The bruschette were ginormous! Thickly sliced sourdough bread was charred to perfection, drizzled in olive oil and topped with mounds of fresh ingredients. It was enough food to feed three or four people, but I was happy to tackle this Everest.
At the first bite my eyes widened in amazement. How could something so simple taste so complex and flavorful?! My friend was equally amazed. It was without a doubt the best bruschetta I’d ever consumed. Not only that, it was possibly the best tomatoes I’d ever eaten and unquestionably the best cheese I’d ever tasted.
As we savored our lunch, the restaurant began to empty. The giant tour group climbed onto their bus, tiny to-go espressos in hand, chattering in Italian all the while. Gino urged us to move to a recently vacated table by the railing so we could get an unobstructed view of the sea. “The sea, the sea”, he kept saying while waving his arms with enthusiasm. We laughed because we wanted to move but the bruschette had lured us into a state of lethargy that simply wouldn’t allow it. Gino, who felt like a long-lost uncle at this point, understood. He nodded knowingly and informed us that what we needed was a limoncello. “Just one limoncello!”
We refused the limoncello on the grounds that we planned to go get gelato and couldn’t possibly mange both. Gino only accepted these conditions when we promised to return to Bar Gino one day for the limoncello. As we staggered out of the little shack by the sea, I wanted to cry at our good fortune. We had stumbled upon a gem when we threw caution to the wind and allowed spontaneity to take the lead.