La Sponda (at hotel Le Sirenuse)

La Sponda gets talked about for the view, and fair enough: from its dining room and terrace inside Le Sirenuse, you look straight onto Positano’s tumbling houses, the dome of Santa Maria Assunta and the bay beyond. But the place would not matter nearly as much if the cooking did not hold up. It does. Executive chef Gennaro Russo, a Neapolitan chef, builds the menu around Campania with a firm hand and very little showing off, which is exactly the point. The signatures people actually remember are not gimmicks but dishes such as lemon risotto with capers, grilled branzino and a notably airy babà. 

The room is part of the seduction: pale green tablecloths, arched windows, Vietri tiles, climbing greenery and, every evening, roughly 400 candles that are lit by hand. Add live guitar and mandolin, and you have a restaurant that understands atmosphere without turning dinner into theatre. Its history helps too. Le Sirenuse began as the Sersale family’s villa and opened as a hotel in 1951, which gives La Sponda that rare sense of being polished yet still personal. You come for the setting, stay for the craftsmanship, and leave thinking mostly about how disciplined the kitchen is beneath all that charm.