Before anything else, the thing you need to know: La Conchiglia is down below, on the sand of the Chiaia beach, and to get there you go down 170 steps. The address is Via Pizzaco 10, but that is the point where you leave the road and start the stairway. It is not a logistical detail: it is the fact that decides whether this place is for you. Going down it is ten minutes; coming up, after lunch, in the July sun, it is another matter. There is an alternative by sea, and I will come to it shortly. Anyone who gets there eats the fresh pasta that few on the island still make, spending about 40 EUR a head.
The 170 steps, and the alternative by sea
The stairway starts from Via Pizzaco, on the ridge that comes down from the Punta Pizzaco headland, and ends on the sand. There are 170 steps, exposed, with no continuous handrail and some uneven stretches. On the way down the view is magnificent and you do not think about it. On the way up on a full stomach, in the heat, you think about it a great deal: allow twenty minutes and a stop.
Anyone who does not feel up to it has a way out: you can also arrive by sea, and the restaurant arranges boat transport from Corricella. Be explicit about this when you book, though: ask whether the service is running that day, what time the boat comes, what it costs and in what sea conditions it does not go. It is a service that depends on conditions, not a scheduled ferry, and finding yourself on the beach after dinner without the lift you expected means 170 steps in the dark.
The sensible rule: go down on foot in the light, book the return by boat. Or, if the boat is not running, book lunch and not dinner, so that you do the climb awake and not at midnight. With pushchairs, wheelchairs or walking difficulties, access on foot is to be ruled out entirely.
What you eat
The reason to go down is the fresh pasta. The stracci with mussels and broccoli are the dish I remember best: irregular hand-pulled pasta, one mollusc and one vegetable, nothing else to hide behind. The caramelle, sweet-wrapper shaped parcels of ricotta and prawns in a white mussel sauce, go in the same direction, with a sauce that is the mussel liquid whipped up, not a cream. The squid stuffed with ricotta in tomato is the main course to order if you cannot decide.
Then there is the frittura di paranza, the mixed small fry, which is the measure of any seafood kitchen: small fish, dry, without the grease that stays with you until the evening. They do it well here, and it is the dish residents cite when they say — and they say it often — that this is the place where you eat best on the island.
On the limone pane, do not expect a dedicated section. If you are after the insalata di limoni, the right address is at Chiaiolella; here the cooking is seafaring and fresh pasta.
When it is open
The season is verified and should be stated clearly: from Easter to November. In winter it is not there, and that makes sense — a restaurant on the sand, reachable by stairway or by boat, does not work in heavy seas. The hours are 12:00–16:00 and 19:00–23:00.
The long lunch window is the real strength: you can arrive at 14:00, eat without hurrying and stay on the beach. If you have a day at the Chiaia planned, the natural fit is morning on the beach, late lunch, afternoon in the shade and the climb back up when the sun drops. The rest of the island’s beaches are in the guide to Procida’s beaches.
On this page you will not find a travellers’ score. Not because it is low: because I have not been able to verify it, and I would rather leave the field empty than report a number I have not checked.
Where you actually are
There is a recurring confusion about this address, and it is worth clearing up. La Conchiglia — "da Tonino" to Procidans — is often associated with Corricella, because that is where the boat comes from and because the ridge is the same. But the restaurant is not on the village quay: it is on the other side of the headland, on the sand of the Chiaia, which is a different beach and a different logistical problem.
You can see the difference at the table. On the Corricella quay you eat inside a village, with the boats moored and people going past; here you eat on a beach, with the noise of the water and nothing else around. At sunset, when the parasols are folded away and only the tables are left, it is the quietest place on the island. It is also the hardest to leave, and those two things are the same thing.
What you spend
About 40 EUR a head: the figure comes from a review by Luciano Pignataro and is one of the few published for the island. For home-made fresh pasta and a fry-up in a place where every crate of vegetables comes down the same stairway you do, it is not expensive. The logistics here really do carry a price.
The same figure is verified for Caracalé at Corricella; Da Girone at the Chiaiolella is between 20 and 40 EUR. As everywhere, the catch of the day by weight is an item of its own: price per kilo and size of the fish, asked for before you order.
The verdict
It is the place I would recommend for a single lunch on Procida, if the lunch had to be one. But with the warning in bold: 170 steps down and 170 back up, or a boat to be agreed. Anyone who knows this in advance goes down prepared and has one of the island’s best days. Anyone who discovers it on the spot, in flip-flops, in the August heat, remembers it for the wrong reason.
If the stairway is out of the question, the level alternatives are at Marina Grande: La Medusa and Re Ferdinando are reached from the harbour with no steps. The full comparison is in the restaurant guide.
