I remember the first time I sat down at a trattoria on the Amalfi Coast and the waiter handed me a menu with no photos, no English, and about forty dishes I couldn’t picture. My Italian was limited to buongiorno and grazie, and I had no idea whether secondi meant a second course or just a larger portion of the first one. It took a few confusing meals before I figured out the logic. That logic is actually pretty simple once you know it, and it makes the whole experience a lot more enjoyable.
Italian menus follow a fixed sequence, not a free-for-all. Once you understand that antipasti come first, then primi (carbs), then secondi (protein), and that contorni are ordered separately, you can stop guessing and start eating what you actually want.
The structure is the same from a tiny trattoria in Minori to a Michelin-starred restaurant in Positano. Antipasti are appetizers like bruschetta, prosciutto e melone, or carpaccio di manzo. Primi are the first main course and are almost always carb-based: pasta, risotto, gnocchi, or soup. Secondi are the protein course — meat, poultry, or fish — and they come without sides. Contorni are side dishes like vegetables, salads, or potatoes, and you order them separately. Dolci are desserts. Bevande covers wine, beer, and water, and after dessert comes caffè and digestivi like limoncello, grappa, or amaro.
The Structure of an Italian Menu
Knowing the sequence helps you pace a meal, which matters because Italian dining is meant to be slow and social. You don’t have to order from every category. On the Amalfi Coast, I often skip antipasti and go straight to a primo if I want pasta, or order a secondo with a contorno if I’m in the mood for grilled fish. The key is knowing that a secondo won’t come with vegetables unless you ask for them separately.
One thing that tripped me up early on: menus that list dozens of dishes in multiple languages with glossy photos. Those menus are designed for tourists, and they tend to be overpriced. A good trattoria on the Amalfi Coast will have a shorter menu, written in Italian, maybe with a handwritten English translation underneath. That’s a sign the food is fresh and the kitchen is focused.
Menus with photos and translations in four languages. They’re almost always tourist traps. A trattoria that doesn’t need to advertise in English is probably doing something right.
Another thing: you won’t find “spaghetti bolognese” on any real Italian menu. The proper dish is tagliatelle al ragù, and it’s a specialty of Bologna, not the Amalfi Coast. If you see it on a menu in Positano, walk away.
A Handful of Cooking Terms That Make a Difference
Italian menus use a small set of cooking terms that tell you exactly how a dish is prepared. Once I learned these, I stopped having to ask the waiter what everything meant. Al forno means baked. Alla griglia means grilled. Fritto means fried. Crudo means raw. Ripieno means stuffed. Con means with, and senza means without.
These are especially useful on the Amalfi Coast, where seafood is central to the cuisine. If a menu lists alici fritte, you know you’re getting fried anchovies. If it says pesce alla griglia, it’s grilled fish. Simple, once you know the pattern.
Before you go, browse a few Italian food blogs or restaurant menus online to practice spotting these terms. It takes ten minutes and saves you the awkward “what does this mean?” conversation at the table.
What to Actually Look For on the Amalfi Coast
The Amalfi Coast has its own set of dishes that rarely appear on menus outside the region. Ordering them is the whole point of eating here, and knowing what to look for makes the menu a lot less intimidating.
Scialatielli is a thick, short, hand-cut pasta that was invented in Amalfi in the 1970s by chef Enrico Cosentino. It was designed to hold seafood sauces, and you’ll most often see it as scialatielli ai frutti di mare — with clams, mussels, shrimp, and squid in olive oil, garlic, cherry tomatoes, and white wine. Most coastal trattorias make it fresh daily.
Ndunderi are small dumplings made from fresh ricotta and flour. They originated in Minori and are considered one of the oldest forms of pasta, predating Gragnano pasta and the industrial pasta trade. They’re typically served with tomato sauce and basil or baked with mozzarella. My family tried them at a trattoria in Minori, and even my pickier eater went back for seconds.
Spaghetti alla Nerano comes from the tiny village of Nerano on the Amalfi Coast. It features fried zucchini, local cheese (typically provolone del Monaco or caciocavallo), and basil tossed with al dente spaghetti, finished with a squeeze of Sfusato Amalfitano lemon. Stanley Tucci helped popularize it, but locals have been eating it for generations. Ristorante Maria Grazia in Nerano is widely credited with the original version.
Sfogliatella Santa Rosa was created in 1681 by a kitchen nun at the Santa Rosa da Lima Monastery in Conca dei Marini. It’s a shell-shaped pastry filled with semolina, ricotta, dried fruit, and lemon liqueur, topped with cream and a cherry. The monastery now operates as a luxury hotel with a Michelin-starred restaurant, but you can still buy the original version at Bar Santa Rosa in Conca dei Marini. Two other forms exist: sfogliatella riccia, which is triangular with shattering thin pastry, and frolla, which is round and soft with shortcrust pastry.
Delizia al limone was invented by pastry chef Carmine Marzuillo in Sorrento and popularized by Sal De Riso in Minori. It’s a lemon sponge cake soaked in limoncello syrup, filled with lemon pastry cream, and glazed with lemon icing. Pasticceria Sal De Riso in Minori and Pasticceria Pansa in Amalfi are both famous for it.
Alici di Cetara are anchovies from the village of Cetara, hand-caught at night and preserved in salt or turned into colatura di alici, a savory amber fermented fish sauce that dates back to ancient Rome. Colatura is drizzled over pasta or vegetables to add umami. If you see it on a menu, order it. It’s a link to a culinary tradition that predates most of the region’s restaurants.
Pizza restaurants worldwide run by families from the thirteen hamlets of Tramonti, a mountain town above the Amalfi Coast.
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Tramonti pizza is a regional specialty that’s different from Neapolitan pizza. It uses wholemeal dough, Corbarino tomatoes, fior di latte from the Lattari Mountains, and DOP olive oil from the Salerno hills. During the economic migration of the 1940s and 1950s, families from Tramonti’s thirteen hamlets became pizzaioli across Italy and beyond. Today, an estimated three thousand pizza restaurants worldwide are run by families from these hamlets. Luigi Giordano, a dairyman from Tramonti who moved to Novara in 1940, is credited with adding unsold mozzarella to pizza to avoid waste, popularizing mozzarella on pizza. The first pizza restaurant in Tramonti, La Violetta, opened in 1943 and is still operating.
How Dining Culture Changes the Experience
Italian dining culture comes with a few rules that aren’t written on the menu. Knowing them keeps you from looking like a tourist and helps you enjoy the meal the way it’s meant to be eaten.
Most restaurants add a coperto, a small cover charge of €1 to €3 per person, for bread and table service. It’s not a scam — it’s standard. Tipping is minimal; rounding up or leaving a euro or two is common if you’re satisfied. Water is always bottled, and bread comes with the meal. Butter or olive oil for dipping is not traditional, so don’t expect it.
Ask for vino della casa (house wine). It’s often local and excellent, served in a mezzo litro (half-liter) or un litro (full liter). On the Amalfi Coast, the house wine is usually from nearby vineyards and costs a fraction of the bottled stuff.
Cappuccino is a morning drink. If you order it after lunch or dinner, you’ll get a look. After a meal, order caffè (espresso) or a digestif like limoncello, which is made by steeping lemon peels in alcohol and blending with sugar syrup. On the Amalfi Coast, limoncello is practically a duty. I tried it at Antichi Sapori d’Amalfi, a family-run factory that offers guided tours and tastings.
Meals are leisurely. Don’t expect to be in and out in under an hour. The waiter won’t bring the check until you ask, and that’s by design. Enjoy the pace.
Putting It Into Practice: A Few Restaurant Recommendations
The research I did for this article turned up a long list of restaurants across the Amalfi Coast, from family-run trattorias to Michelin-starred dining rooms. A few stood out as places where the menu makes sense and the food is genuinely regional.
Trattoria Da Gemma in Amalfi has been open since 1872. It serves traditional cuisine including fish soup, pasta alla Genovese, and grilled octopus on a terrace overlooking the Duomo. The menu is short, seasonal, and written in Italian with a brief English translation. That’s the kind of place you want.
Da Adolfo in Positano is only accessible by boat from the main beach. It serves fresh seafood with a seaside atmosphere, and the menu changes daily based on what was caught. No photos, no multilingual gimmicks — just handwritten specials.
La Sponda at Le Sirenuse in Positano holds a Michelin star and features Mediterranean cuisine in a dining room lit by over 400 candles with live mandolin music. It’s a splurge, but the menu is a masterclass in regional ingredients prepared with precision.
Agriturismo Serafina in Furore is a rural farm restaurant offering homemade pasta and traditional dishes in a family setting. It’s the kind of place where the menu is essentially whatever the kitchen decided to cook that day.
Ristorante Franchino in Praiano has been family-run for over 50 years. It’s known for shrimp ravioli and other seafood dishes, and the menu reflects what’s in season on the coast.
Before You Go
Here are a few questions I hear from readers who are planning their first trip to the Amalfi Coast and want to feel confident ordering food.
What’s the best way to ask the waiter for a recommendation?
Say “Cosa consiglia?” — what do you recommend? Or “Qual è la specialità della casa?” — what’s the house specialty? Waiters appreciate the effort and will usually point you to something the kitchen does well.
Is it rude to split a dish?
Not at all. Italians do it too, especially with primi. Just ask for due piatti (two plates) when you order, and the kitchen will split it for you. Some restaurants charge a small splitting fee, so check first.
What’s the deal with the bread basket?
Bread is included in the coperto. It’s meant to be eaten with your meal, not as a starter. Using it to mop up sauce from your pasta is perfectly normal. Just don’t expect butter or olive oil — that’s not the tradition here.
Is it true that you can’t get a good meal at a restaurant with a multilingual menu?
Generally, yes. Restaurants that cater to tourists with menus in six languages and photos of every dish tend to prioritize volume over quality. The best meals I’ve had on the Amalfi Coast were at places where the menu was handwritten in Italian and the waiter had to translate for me.
Restaurants that offer “spaghetti bolognese” or “fettuccine Alfredo” on the Amalfi Coast. Neither dish is Italian in the way you think — they’re Americanized versions. A trattoria that serves them is probably not cooking regional food.
Why It’s Worth Taking Your Time
Learning to read a trattoria menu isn’t about avoiding embarrassment. It’s about accessing food that tells a story. The ndunderi from Minori, the colatura from Cetara, the sfogliatella from a monastery kitchen in Conca dei Marini — these dishes exist because someone generations ago figured out how to make something delicious from what they had. When you order them, you’re participating in that tradition, not just eating a meal. And that’s the whole point of eating your way through Italy. For more on the towns where these dishes live, I found this guide to the Amalfi Coast’s cliffside villages helpful for planning which ones to visit.
Sources and further reading
The Happy Few. “The Amalfi Coast Has a Secret Menu.” 🔗
Chez Melange. “How to Read an Italian Menu and Not Look Like a Tourist.” 🔗
Ready Set Italy. “Best Restaurants on the Amalfi Coast.” 🔗
Explored by Marta. “Foods on the Amalfi Coast, Italy.” 🔗
Related reading on Emily in Italy
Cetara’s Anchovy Sauce Recipe Predates Most of the Coast’s Restaurants — A deeper look at colatura di alici and the village that produces it.
Furore’s Terraced Slopes Grow Wine the Rest of the Coast Overlooks — Where local wine comes from and why you should order it.
Ravello’s Villa Cimbrone Has a Quieter Neighbor Nobody Mentions — A less crowded spot near Ravello worth adding to your itinerary.
An Italian Road Trip from Milan to the Amalfi Coast — How to drive south and eat well along the way.