It’s all about dinner

We start off with breakfast at the hotel restaurant. It was so good, we made dinner reservations for 7:30 that night. Remember, we are in Europe, that’s opening time for a restaurant.

But let’s start with the hotel. Hotel Romeo Naples opened on the Naples waterfront this year. It is ultra modern and designed by the Japanese architect, Kenzo Tange. There are plenty of Asian touches and art and lots of high tech. Everything is operated by screen touches. You order the elevator on a keypad in the lobby by entering your floor # and it tells you elevator A or B, then the elevator door opens and no more buttons, it takes you right to your floor. The rooms have the room number integrated in the floor. Everything inside is on a touch screen panel - from the lights to the draperies to the do not disturb indicator.

Our room number is 410 and we enter with a key card on the panel.

From breakfast

The lobby and the rooftop bar.

And we are off on foot to cover the city. From the waterfront to the castle on the hill.

Look at the clouds above - looks like animals running across the sky

Crazy crowds and we have a dinner reservation to make.

So dinner tonight is in the hotel at il Restorante Alain Ducasse. It just opened in June and I am sure it will be a Michelin rated restaurant at the next rating review in November. It is French cooking using local Italian foods. He also has other restaurant locations around the world; New York, Las Vegas, London, Paris, Bangkok, 3 in Japan…and multiple others.

I ordered a crab appetizer, and a Mediterranean lobster dish for my entree. Jim ordered an Aubergine dish for his entree and chocolate soufflé for dessert.

But here are some of the dishes we were unexpectedly served in addition to our order.

Seeded crisp - they said it was all edible, but when I pointed to the stand for the crisp - they said - oh no, that’s volcanic rock from Mt Vesuvius. Also accompanying that serving was anchovy bit, then two small pieces of fish on a skewer, tartlettes with plum and flowers, and at the rear flash fried sage with thin fried pieces of local fish. This was followed by cold spaghetti with caviar (by now they figured out Jim didn’t eat fish and he started getting other tasting dishes). His first dish is on the right - something to do with mushrooms.

And then a round of bread, with some olive oil from Sicily, an offering of salt, and some special churned butter. Oh yes and two kinds of blended pepper in the vessel that looks like it has an egg on top.

Now my crab appetizer, but I don’t think I got a picture as I was so mesmerized by the smoking dish of ice.

This was a flavored ice that was spooned over my crab dish - but no picture of that.

Our entrees - my lobster and Jim’s Aubergine in a sauce.

And now we cleanse our pallets. Raspberry sorbet with cold bits of raspberry ice.

By now we are hoping to get the chocolate soufflé and be done. But of course it also comes with some chocolate ice cream with a lighter chocolate sauce. And then the chocolate soufflé.

Certainly now we are done…but not quite yet…

Kiwi and peach on individual forks and 2 pieces of chocolate.

And yes now we are done. I wish I would have taken pictures of our serving team. The hostess who took our order, our waiter and all of the assistants…our water servers, the sommelier, the 3 waiters that removed our plates after each serving…and multiple others. There were at least 6 of them. And I had to get a picture of the kitchen on the way out.

And that’s the head chef giving us a thumbs up. All this staff and for the first 90 minutes of dinner, it was only us and another table with an American couple ( I say they were American not because I know, but because who else would be seated at dinner at 7:30). By the time we left close to 10 p.m there were maybe 4 other tables occupied. If word gets out this restaurant will be bustling!

And with all that food sitting on our stomachs- we are off to bed.