Gabbiano - Portovenere

Lovely ice cream, wide flavour selection. Also good coffee and brioche cioccolata. Lovely view across the harbour.

This review is about the RESTAURANT (part of a beach club also comprising snack bar and gelateria (ice cream kiosk). I clarify this because most if not all the reviews in English (3) appear to be about the snack bar. On recommendation from a local who told us we would get good simple food (and would be much better value than Locanda Lorena which apparently rests on its laurels) we booked in for lunch party of 6 (including my sister's family who now live in Lucca and drove up for the day). The delightful, vivacious and very helpful maitre de/head waitress, Lucia from La Spezia (who speaks very good English after a stint in London) made the reservation and looked after our table very well. The antipasti di frutti di mari consisting of the ubiquitous marinated anchovies, baby octopus, small peeled prawns, mussels and more unusually a delicious salt cod and caper pate was universally regarded as delicious. In addition we had 2 plates of the marinated anchovies. The fritto misto/ fritti misti for 5, despite my somewhat jaded palate as it was the third in four days, was pronounced very good by the Lucca branch of the family who are connoisseurs of the dish. And my sister who was the odd one out with a plate of spaghetti and mussels was well pleased.Lucia recommended an excellent vermentino which washed down very nicely. The bill was a reasonable euro 175 for 6 including 2 bottles of wine. The food was enhanced by the fabulous views out to Porto Venere's fortress and church. We skipped the desserts and strolled down to the ice cream kiosk to partake of various scrumptious gelati. Definitely worth the boat trip over from Porto Venere and if staying for an early dinner remember the last boat off the island leaves at 8.00 pm. Luckily we were staying on the island so would not have been concerned. In any event while we would happily have taken dinner at Gabbiano, we decided to dine out in Porto Venere during our stay as we were lucky enough to have a private water taxi from our excellent host at Casa del Pescatore, Andrea and his trusty first mate Leon.

Nice glass of Vermentino, beer, wheat beer. Good foccacia with mozzarella, tomato and basil, delicious spinach tart. All that and overlooking the Golfo dei Poeti perfect!

The coffee was good, my wife tells me that her pastry was delicious, the views across the Gulf of Poets was sublime, but sadly I was unable to partake in food here as there were no Gluten Free options. The service however was good and the toilets clean.

A quick and simple lunch was what we wanted and this place definitely provided food was tasty but portions were rather small I felt compared to other places we have visited. Pizza was more like a slice and yet was still the price pizza at other establishments but it was good! Staff were friendly and in the pouring rain helped us find a dry table.