Baccanali Neptunus

As I sit on the terrace listening to the sounds of the morning, the restaurant where we dined looming down from the hill above, last night’s dining experience seems like a technicolor dream. I honestly don’t know quite where to start…

First, let me tell you about where we’re staying. Our home for four nights is in Panza, a very small village on the southwest side of the island of Ischia. Unlike our time in Florence and Rome, there are few Americans here. Life here is a bit more rustic (I’ll save the description of our Airbnb for another time) than you’d find in areas more popular with Americans.

Yesterday we had a phenomenal day at an thermal park, the first of which either of us have ever been. There were pools of water in various temperatures, all heated naturally by thermal springs, along with icy cold plunge baths, salty showers and a sauna. All of this is beachside.

It was magical.

We arrived at home close to 7:00 for showers and some reading, one of the topics which was where to have dinner later in the evening. After some research, we selected Ristorante Neptunas – the reviews were good and it was only 500 meters away, a consideration in this extremely hilly landscape.

We headed out after 8:30 under a sky that in the distance held on to the ribbons of colors of sunset. The walk, unsurprisingly, was an almost continuous climb up. What was a surprise, however, was finding ourselves at the location which seemed to be the source of the previous evening’s rather raucous music.

This realization was in fact confirmed within 20 minutes of our being seated on the expansive terrace overlooking the remains of sunset. There were 5 or 6 other tables seated, with a flock of servers attending them, and all seemed to be happily enjoying the ambiance, food and drink. We were asked by the person we perceived to be the owner where we came from and we said New York, prompting him to proudly show us a large, framed mosaic of photos, including one of Mario Cuomo. The owner (can we just call him Neptune?) announced to the other diners that we were from New York, information which was met with a loud cheer and shouts of “New York! New York!”

Our night began.

Perhaps there’s an Ischian saying about “when the sun goes down, the music goes up,” because that’s exactly what happened. The cigarette smoking, waitress dj began playing an eclectic selection of songs at a volume that necessitated leaning close to one another for conversation. Obviously not a problem, just rather unexpected.

We were poured glasses of sparkling wine as we read the menus. We ordered three courses and were presented with four bottles of white wine to select from. Cross referencing the labels with the wine list still at hand, I determined that these bottles were all from the very top of the list, beginning in price at €120. We selected a local Ischian bottle for a significantly more modest price.

While waiting for our first course of baby octopus, various instruments were distributed to diners, things like tambourines, a plastic horn and matching sets of pot lids. Our evening took a turn in a somewhat weird direction. An Italian song with which we were unfamiliar began to play and Neptune encouraged, somewhat forcefully, everyone to dance. There was no saying no. We grabbed our pot lids and joined the scrum.

There’s video of the dancing but I’ve been sworn to keeping it personal, for now. For the record, I just rewatched it and it’s hilarious.

We made our way back to our seats and were served our first course, which was excellent. Our bottle of wine was poured and we settled into dinner. Soon enough, however, another song would come on and diners would vacate their tables to enthusiastically sway and sing on the makeshift dance floor. There was no denying the siren of the music or Neptune. Participation was obligatory.

Our reward for being game was a generous pour from a huge jug of their own local wine into a third wine glass now on our table. I politely took a sip and found it to be, shall I say, rustic. Not undrinkable, just a little more astringent than I prefer. I returned to my own glass from our purchased bottle for a chaser, draining the glass. The observant Neptune noticed my empty glass and helpfully removed it, leaving me with only the quite full glass of his house wine. Not daring to ask for another glass, N and I shared his glass.

Our first course, baby octopus in tomato sauce with crostini, was fabulous. After we finished, our plates were cleared and we awaited our pasta course. The lag between courses would prove to be substantial, perhaps due in part to the chef’s participation in the evening’s dance festivities. In addition to making a dynamite octopus dish he also played a mean air guitar

Sidebar: Is it still called air guitar if one actually has a guitar in their hands but doesn’t actually strum it? Because that was the situation I’m attempting to describe here.

The night continued with dining interspersed with dancing. The Roman teacher dining solo near us, apparently a regular, had no hesitations about shaking ass, tooting on the blue horn (not code for anything else, I assure you) and was a most enthusiastic participant. At one point in the evening he disappeared for a short while only to reappear in a swimsuit, which he promptly justified wearing when he jump into the small pool on the terrace.

Things were getting crazy.

The moments N and I were alone at our table were spent eating and discussing, with only a twinge of genuine concern, whether this was going to play out like that scene in The Menu and agreed that at the first sign of any large tarp, we were running. Each time the music or vibe changed, one of us would say to the other “and now we’re going to die,” laughing as we sipped wine from our single glass.

Our pasta arrived and it was lovely with gorgeous chunks of perhaps the best shrimp I’ve ever eaten. When the bowl was empty, pulled from my seat, I danced some more while N remained at the table prepared to rescue me if we needed to make a run for it. Our final course of local fish finally arrived and we ate as much as we possibly could, our bellies full and our minds reeling from the scene we were witnessing – a woman dancing on a table, the chef gyrating as he tossed a pan of pasta and eventually circulating to hand feed strands to willing guests, myself included.

Neptune continued to make the rounds with his jug of wine visiting each remaining table before busting out the largest bottle of limoncello I’ve ever seen. N finally caved to the pressure and joined me and the gang on the dance floor earning himself shouts of “Brava!” from our fellow revelers. We finally sat back down to request the check, a request which we had to make multiple times to various workers which gave us plenty of time to repeat “and now we’re going to die,” a few more times.

As we waited for the bill, a James Brown song came on and this time neither of us needed prompting to return to the dance floor for a final turn. Our dancing earned us cheers and prompted me to think of that Uma Thurman/John Travolta Pulp Fiction scene, without the drugs and oding, of course. As the song ended, having given the audience what they seemed to want, we exited the dance floor to a roar of cheers and applause feeling like rockstars.

We paid our check during a brief break in the action and then once again lost the staff and other diners to yet another song and dance. Using the glasses which had once held our original complimentary sparkling wine, we hoisted that gigantic bottle of limoncello and poured ourselves each a swallow, tossing it back as we returned to the road which would take us home, and perhaps back to normalcy.

What an absolutely wild and unforgettable night.