Il Pescatore is at number 63 on the quay, in the middle of the row of names that occupy the seafront at Corricella. It has a panoramic terrace, two sittings at lunch and dinner, and the most useful thing for anyone arriving from outside: it takes bookings online through Tablein, so you do not have to gamble your evening on a phone line that keeps dropping. It closes on Mondays. The travellers’ rating is 4.1 out of 5 from about 630 reviews: a step below the village’s two most cited addresses, and it is worth understanding why.
Where it is
Coordinates 40.7616, 14.0291: you are on the quay, level with the water, with the gozzi moored in front and the terraced houses behind. From the harbour at Marina Grande you get there on foot in about twenty minutes by way of Via Vittorio Emanuele, or by microbus up to Piazza dei Martiri and then down the stairway that leads to the marina.
Going down is the easy part. Coming back up after dinner, with the wine and the heat, is the only real effort of an evening at Corricella: allow a good ten minutes and shoes that grip on worn steps. If lunch is part of a walk between Terra Murata and Corricella, the right order is the climb to the walled village first and the descent to the table after, not the other way round.
What to order
The three things customers cite the place for are the octopus, the paccheri with swordfish and the salmon in a pistachio crust. Octopus is the dish I measure any seafood kitchen in the bay by: long cooking, then the grill, and inside it has to stay tender. The paccheri with swordfish is a first course from the Mediterranean seafood menu, more Sicilian than Procidan, and it is honest to say so: the cooking here follows the taste of the bay, not a codified island tradition.
The salmon in a pistachio crust is the clearest signal of this approach, and it is also the dish that divides opinion: salmon does not live in the Tyrrhenian, so it is an imported product in a restaurant looking out at a fishing fleet. If you have come to Procida to eat what comes out of that sea, order the catch of the day or the octopus and leave it alone. If, on the other hand, you are at the table with someone who will not touch oily fish, that dish saves the evening.
As for the cooking of the limone pane, as on the rest of the quay, do not count on it. You will certainly find the insalata di limoni on the other side of the island, at Chiaiolella.
Hours and booking
The hours are 12:30–14:30 for lunch and 19:30–22:30 for dinner, closed on Mondays. They are tight hours, typical of a place working in sittings: if you book at 21:30 in August, expect fast service and not a long evening. The first sitting is better.
Bookings go through Tablein and through the mobile number, +39 339 453 6543; the restaurant is also on Instagram, where it posts the day’s availability. Online booking is this address’s real competitive advantage for anyone organising from a distance: most of the island’s restaurants answer only the phone, and on busy days they do not answer at all. If you are fitting dinner around the time of the ferry back — check the page on ferries to Procida — being able to fix the exact hour changes the day.
What you spend
Mid bracket. There is no published, verifiable average figure for Il Pescatore, so I am not giving you one: converting the review portals’ currency symbols into euros is the quickest way to write down a wrong number. To get an idea of the order of magnitude at Corricella, the village’s only verified reference is Caracalé, around 40 EUR a head.
The rule holds everywhere on the island: the catch sold by weight is the item that decides the bill. Ask the price per kilo and get them to show you the fish before it goes on the grill. No serious restaurant takes offence, and anyone who does is telling you something.
When to go
Procida really does empty out in winter: between November and March a substantial share of the restaurants close or cut their days, and in the evening the Corricella quay becomes a silent place, with two or three lights on. For this address I have no verified seasonal calendar, so the rule stays the phone call: before you go down, ring. If you want a certainty off season, the only place in the village with confirmed year-round opening is Caracalé, which from January to March works at weekends.
In summer the problem is reversed. Between mid-July and the end of August the quay is full at every sitting, and without a booking you wander from one name to the next for nothing. The best months to eat at your ease are May, June and September: the sea already good, tables free, and service that has the time to tell you what came in that morning.
The verdict
It is a good quayside address, with a terrace that justifies the bill and the practical advantage of online booking. The 4.1 out of 5 in the reviews, against the 4.3 of the village’s two strongest names, describes a place that is solid but not memorable: when it is packed the service is in a hurry, and that is the note that recurs most often among people who eat here.
How I would use it: lunch, first sitting, octopus and a glass, with the bay less photogenic in the middle of the day but far more liveable. For the scenic dinner I would climb up to La Lampara; for the room in the former boat store I would stay at Caracalé; for a pizza with the same view there is Fuego two doors along. The full comparison is in the guide to Procida’s restaurants.
