Da Vincenzo – POSITANO

Lo SMERALDINO

AMALFI

Los Smeraldino is a great restaurant with an amainzing view out on the Terrace. You can get an amazing seafood meal here, including a great plate of Spaghetti Vongole. Try it!

SPAGHETTI VONGOLE

Spaghetti Vongole, otherwise known in America as Spaghetti with Clam Sauce. Well as you know by now we ate a lot of wonderful Italian Food in my family, prepared by my mother, my Uncle Tony, and my most precious Aunts Helen, Fran, and Wanda. Yes we would eat Ravioli, Spaghetti & Meatballs, Braciole, Lasagna, and other tasty dishes. This being said, there were some famous dishes that we really didn’t eat at home and only had in restaurants. Baked Clams and Spaghetti or Linguine w/Clam Sauce were a couple dishes that my mother nor my aunts never made. This was one of the dishes that I really didn’t eat much until I became an adult and started going out to eat in restaurants on my own.

Spaghetti Vongole is without question one of the greatest most important dishes in the whole Italian repertoire. It’s eaten all over Italy, but is most popular in and around Naples and the Amalfi Coast. Spaghetti w/Clam Sauce is huge with Italian-Americans, but again many might not make it at home all that much, and it is always a very special treat to get it when going out to eat at one of your favorite Italian Restaurants wherever you may be. In America they eat Spaghetti with White or Red Clam Sauce. In Italy they don’t really make clam sauce with a lot of tomato in the sauce as they do with Red Clam Sauce in America. In Italy, true Spaghetti Vongole (in Italy) is made with the little Italian Clams found in the Mediterranean and Adriatic Seas, with Olive Oil, garlic, and little bit of Pepperoncino (Red Pepper Flakes) and maybe a few Cherry Tomatoes but no tomato sauce. And the sauce may or may not have Cherry Tomatoes in it, but all the other ingredients mentioned. Actually all that tomato sauce in a plate of Red Clam Sauce actually dilutes the flavor of the clams and sort of defeats the purpose of having a nice plate of Pasta al Vongole, as you want to taste the clams and not have them overpowered by a lot of tomato, and the clams are merely embellished by the garlic, olive oil, and red pepper flakes.

Anyway, I’d eaten Spaghetti or Linguine Vongole any number of times before I made my first trip to Italy in the Summer of 1985. I had met Rene Ricard the poet/artist/art critic through my friend Alma Marti just a short time before. I was working as a waiter at the old school red sauce restaurant John’s of 12^th Street at the time. I had just finished working one night just a few days before I was to leave for my trip to Italy. I got out of work and was walking home when I ran into Rene and Alma on Second Avenue and 11^th Street near Alma’s home. We were chit-chatting and I guess the subject of my trip to Italy came up. Rene asked me where I was going, and when I told him I was going to Rome, Venice, Florence, Napoli, and Positano among other places, Rene had some recommendations on places to stay and restaurants that he said I had to go to. On the subject of Positano where Rene had spent time the previous Summer, he told me of a nice little hotel to stay at, and also told me I just had to go to Da Vincenzo and get the SpaghettimVongole which was Rene professed “the Best Spaghetti Vongole in all the World.” Well, yes I did go to Italy, I had the most wonderful time in Rome and Venice, Florence, Napoli, and my now my beloved Positano which at the time was not as well known and overcrowded with tourist as it is these days. I went to Da Vincenzo and got the Spaghetti Vongole, and sure enough Rene was right, it truly was the best plate of Spaghetti Vongole I’d ever had, and maybe even the best in the world. It didn’t hurt that the surroundings were as good as it gets, being in one of the prettiest spots in the world, Positano. I was inside the lovely trattoria Da Vincenzo in Positano on the Amalfi Coast in Italy and eating Spaghetti Vongole at the source. Now it doesn’t get better than that I tell you.

Now I’ve got to say, if that was not the one single best plate of Vongole, then certainly it was among some of the best in the world. Naples and its surrounding area of the Sorrentine Peninsular and the Amalfi Coast is the undisputed capital in the World for Pasta alla Vongole, and just about any restaurant that makes it, they had better be able to make a great plate of it, and they do. Well, the Spaghetti Vongole at Da Vincenzo was a revelation as was the town of Positano and my whole trip to Italy that year. A trip I’ll never forget, nor the Vongole or anything else. I shall always cherish that first trip to Mother Italy, Capri, and the Amalfi Coast, all the days of my life.

Excerted from MANGIA ITLIANO – by Daniel Bellino Zwicke

MANGIA ITALIANO

Memories of Italian Food

SPAGHETTI VONGOLE

Recipe

at La SPAGNOLA

SALERNO

ITALY

2018

DaVINCENZOoooooooooo

Da VINCENZO

POSITANO

DaVINCENzoME

Me at Da VINCENZO

Summer 2015

POSITANO

ITALY

SPAGETTI VONGOLE

O ‘ PULEDRONE , Marina Grande , SORRENTO

If in Sorrento, this is a wonderful little trattoria to have a nice Seafood Lunch or Dinner. It is a family run restaurant. Michael and his brother are Fishermen who catch what you will be eating for your meal. Everything is wonderful, and what’s more authentic than a place t That catches their own Fish? It’s all super fresh, caught in the morning and on your table for lunch or dinner.

Any type of seafood Antipasti is great, including a mixed seafood antipasto or simply a plate of Cozze Posilipo or Cozze Pepate. Have some Grilled Octopus, Fritto misto (mixed Fried Fish) or a plate of Spaghetti with Clam Sauce (Vongole), “it’s all good.”

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CETARA

This is a True to Life Authetic Fishing Village, a few minutes from Salerno. Go to any Trattoria here for a great palte of Spaghetti Vongole and one of the Best Seafood Meals you’ll have in your entire life. The town is famous for its Alici (ANchovies) and Tonno (Tuna), but that’s not all they have, it’s all good, and as Fresh as Fresh can be.

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