Is it better to get around the Amalfi Coast by boat or by car?

By boat, for most meals worth travelling for. A small boat turns a two hour road round trip into about twenty five minutes and lands you at the restaurant steps rather than in a garage above the village. Ferries run between the main towns through the season. Boats stop in rough weather and reduce sharply outside summer, so it is a seasonal answer.

What closes on the Amalfi Coast in winter?

Much of Positano, including hotels, their restaurants and most of the beach places, from around early November until Easter, with the ferries almost entirely suspended. Amalfi and Ravello keep more open because people live there year round, and a few hillside kitchens above Positano stay open for locals. April, May, late September and October are the best months.

How far in advance should I book restaurants in Positano?

Two to four weeks for the well known rooms in July and August, and longer for the hotel terraces, especially with a group. Many places still confirm by telephone or WhatsApp and keep a paper book, so an online booking site is often not the right route. Shoulder season usually needs only a couple of days.

What is spaghetti alla Nerano and where do I eat it?

It is pasta with fried courgettes and provolone del monaco cheese, and it was invented at Marina del Cantone on the headland west of Positano. Ristorante Maria Grazia claims the original and Lo Scoglio is the better known name today. It is thirty to forty five minutes of hard coast road each way, which is why most people go by boat.

Is there a dress code for Amalfi Coast restaurants?

Smart rather than formal in most places. The hotel dining rooms expect long trousers and a collar in the evening and will notice if you turn up in beachwear. The more important practical point is shoes, because the walk between a car and a table is frequently a long flight of stairs in both directions.

Can you eat well in Amalfi town itself?

Yes, but not in the few streets immediately around the cathedral steps, which are built for day trippers off the ferries and the coaches. Walk five minutes beyond that. Trattoria da Gemma above the main square has been in the same family for over a century, and Marina Grande on the beach does straightforward fish well.

Are the hillside restaurants above Positano worth the trip?

They are usually the better meal and the better value. Montepertuso and Nocelle sit above the village and the cooking there is home style Campanian food with vegetables grown on the surrounding terraces. Nearly all of them will collect you by car and drive you home afterwards, which you should accept, because the walk down in the dark is hard going.

Should we eat out every night on the Amalfi Coast?

We would say no, and that argues against our own list. Between the road, the parking and the stairs, going out is real work here. The local fish, tomatoes and lemons are extraordinary and a village cook will beat most of the beachfront on simple pasta. Three nights in, three out and one long boat lunch is the better week.

Best Restaurants in Positano and Amalfi: Where Locals Eat

Where to eat along the Amalfi Coast, why arriving by boat changes the week, and what actually closes once the season ends.

The Amalfi Coast is one of the few places where geography, not taste, determines what you eat. Positano is a vertical village with one road through it, Amalfi is a working town at the mouth of a gorge, and the thirty kilometres of cliff between Sorrento and Salerno was cut for mules before it was widened for cars. That single fact shapes every meal of the week. It decides how far you can go for dinner, whether a boat makes more sense than a driver, and why a trattoria three hundred metres above your house is often the better plan than the famous terrace at sea level. We put guests on this coast every summer, and this is the version we give them before they arrive rather than after.

The coast road is two narrow lanes with buses, scooters and delivery vans on it, and in July and August it can take an hour to move a distance that looks like fifteen minutes on a map. Positano is one way from the top, so a car coming down cannot simply turn around, and the village has almost no parking that is not a paid garage with a queue. What this means practically is that dinner twenty five kilometres away is not a casual decision, it is the evening. Plan one town per night. Our honest advice is to pick a base, eat within it four nights out of seven, and use a boat rather than a car for the two or three meals that are genuinely worth travelling for.

This is the thing most first time visitors work out on day five and wish they had known on day one. A small boat with a local skipper turns a two hour round trip on the road into twenty five minutes on the water, arrives at the restaurant steps rather than a garage above the village, and removes the parking problem entirely. Ferries run between Positano, Amalfi, Praiano, Capri and Sorrento through the season and are cheap, reliable and pleasant. A private transfer for a group of eight is not a luxury on this coast, it is a straightforward way of getting a longer evening and fewer arguments. Ferries reduce sharply outside summer and stop in rough weather, so it is a seasonal answer rather than a year round one.

The beachfront at Spiaggia Grande is the postcard and it is also the most expensive real estate on the coast, which shows up on the bill. Chez Black has been on that beach since the nineteen forties and is a proper institution rather than a tourist trap, and the fish and the spaghetti with clams are good. La Cambusa sits at the corner of the beach and has been there almost as long. Lo Guarracino, on the path towards Fornillo, is cut into the cliff under a lemon pergola and is one of the genuinely lovely places to eat at lunchtime. The rule at sea level is the same as anywhere with a view. Order the simplest thing on the menu and it will be good.

Above Positano, reached by a hairpin road or by a great many steps, sit the two hamlets of Montepertuso and Nocelle, and the cooking up there is better than most of what is below it. Il Ritrovo and Donna Rosa in Montepertuso have both been doing serious home style Campanian food for decades, with vegetables grown on terraces you can see from the table. La Tagliata is the theatrical one, a family run hillside room with no real menu that simply brings food until you ask it to stop, and it is a very good night for a group. Almost all of these places will send a car down to collect you and take you home, and you should let them, because the walk back down in the dark is genuinely unpleasant.

Da Adolfo at Laurito beach is the single most quoted meal on this coast and it deserves the reputation. There is no road, and the way in is a small boat with a red fish painted on it that runs from the jetty at Positano through the day. Lunch is mozzarella grilled on lemon leaves, fish off the grill, and white wine with peaches in it, eaten in a wooden shack on a pebble beach. It is not sophisticated and it is not cheap for what it is, and it is still one of the best afternoons on the coast. Book ahead in summer, go early, and accept that the last boat back sets the end of your day whether you are ready or not.

Praiano sits between Positano and Amalfi and is the quieter, cheaper and in many ways more pleasant place to eat. It has real village restaurants serving people who live there, a beach at Marina di Praia wedged into a fissure in the cliff with a couple of long running fish places on it, and none of the crush of Positano in August. Furore and Conca dei Marini, a little further east, are the same idea again. If you are staying in Positano and want one night that feels like the coast before it became famous, twenty minutes east is enough. This stretch is also the part that empties earliest in the shoulder season, so check rather than drive.

Amalfi is a working town, which is both its advantage and its problem. The streets immediately around the cathedral steps are heavily geared to day trippers off the ferries and the coaches, and the food there is largely indifferent. Walk five minutes past that and it changes completely. Trattoria da Gemma, above the main square, has been run by the same family for over a century and is the safe recommendation for anybody who wants one proper meal in Amalfi. Marina Grande, down on the beach, does good fish with its feet almost in the water. The paper mills up the valley and the lemon terraces above the town are worth an hour before lunch rather than after it.

Ravello sits several hundred metres above Amalfi on a road of switchbacks, and it is cooler, quieter and considerably more civilised than the coast below. Cumpa Cosimo has been serving plain, generous Campanian food on the main street for generations and remains the antidote to anything overworked. The hotel dining rooms up here, including the terrace restaurants at Palazzo Avino and at the Caruso, are among the most beautiful places to eat in Italy and they charge accordingly. Our honest note is that the view from Ravello is the reason to go, the gardens at Villa Cimbrone and Villa Rufolo are the reason to stay the afternoon, and the food is a strong supporting act rather than the headline.

West of Positano, around the headland towards Sorrento, sits the small bay of Marina del Cantone, and this is where spaghetti alla Nerano was invented, which is pasta with fried courgettes and provolone del monaco cheese. Ristorante Maria Grazia claims the original and Lo Scoglio is the better known name now, sitting on a jetty over the water with its own vegetable garden behind it. This is a genuine pilgrimage lunch and it is also thirty to forty five minutes of hard coast road each way, which is why almost everybody who goes properly goes by boat. It is worth one day of a week and it will spoil ordinary pasta for you afterwards.

The high end here is mostly attached to the grand hotels, and two of them sit right on the water in Positano. La Sponda at Le Sirenuse is lit with several hundred candles every evening and is one of the great rooms in Italy on atmosphere alone. Il San Pietro, a little east of the village, has its own beach lift cut through the cliff and a dining terrace hanging over the sea. Rossellinis at Palazzo Avino does the same thing from up in Ravello. These are proper kitchens and they are also, straightforwardly, expensive rooms with famous views. If you have one big night in the budget, this is where to spend it, and one is enough.

This coast has a real off season and it is more complete than people expect. A large part of Positano closes from around the beginning of November until Easter, including hotels, their restaurants, the beach places and many of the shops, and the ferries reduce to almost nothing. Amalfi and Ravello keep more open because people live there year round, and the hillside villages above Positano keep a handful of kitchens going for locals. April, May, late September and October are the best months on this coast by a wide margin, with everything open and the road still moving. August is the peak of the crowding and it is also when the Italians arrive, which makes it worse.

For July and August, book the well known rooms two to four weeks out and the hotel terraces further ahead than that, especially for a group. Most places will confirm by telephone or WhatsApp and many still keep a paper book. Dress is smart but not formal, and the hotel restaurants expect long trousers and a collar in the evening. The thing nobody tells you is about shoes. Distance here is measured in steps rather than metres, and the walk from a car to a table can genuinely be a hundred stairs in either direction. Wear something you can climb in, and if anybody in the group has difficulty with stairs, say so when you book, because it changes the recommendation completely.

We will say the thing that costs us the commission. Many of the best meals our guests eat on this coast happen on their own terrace. The ingredients here are extraordinary and mostly local, the fish comes off boats in Praiano and Cetara, the tomatoes and lemons are grown on the terraces above the house, and a cook from the village will make a better plate of spaghetti with clams than most of the beachfront. Add the road, the parking and the steps, and going out every night on the Amalfi Coast is genuinely hard work. Three nights in, three nights out and one long lunch by boat is the shape of a good week here.

The restaurants named here are mostly family businesses that have lasted decades, which makes them the safest bets on the coast, and none of that makes them permanent. Families retire, a son takes over and changes the kitchen, a hotel restaurant loses the chef who made it, and winter closures sometimes turn into permanent ones without any announcement. Opening dates at either end of the season also move every year with the weather and with the ferry timetable. We check openings, closures and booking policy before we put a guest anywhere on this coast, and you should treat any list including ours as a good place to begin rather than a guarantee.