Napoles

Napoles is an Italian-theme restaurant located on Caseros at the border of San Telmo and Barracas, in the same block as a few of our favorite restaurants in the city, including Hierbabuena, The Pizza Only True Love, Club Social and Bacán.

The restaurant is owned by a successful antiques and relics collector and dealer, who decided to utilize a huge warehouse full of quirky antiques, the majority of which have some connection to Italy, as décor in a casual-dining restaurant serving Italian cuisine, mostly pasta and pizza.

The result is an astonishingly interesting ambiance that’s as much a museum as it is a restaurant. Everyone that reads this needs to go to this restaurant, if only for a cup of coffee and a dessert, to see the stunning array of items displayed tastefully throughout the restaurant.

The ambiance is further enhanced by the display of antique Italian video clips, including a few full-length movies from the brilliant Italian director, Federico Fellini. Mixed in, of course, with some quirky clips of fake European wrestling, and real Italian crooners, singing mid-20th-century songs. It creates a remarkably interesting and enjoyable atmosphere.

Well … that’s the good news.

I regret to say that service and the execution of the menu don’t live up to the standard set by the stunning décor.

The odd thing is that my first visit to Napoles for a mid-day lunch, was a pleasant experience. The prix fixe menu at Napoles features a small appetizer and main-course, with beverage or glass of wine. At the time of my review that was costing ARS$350 (about US$9). A dessert was not included but I ordered the tiramisu so I could see how the pastry chef performed.

All three courses were top-notch, in terms of both the creation and the execution of the dish. For the appetizer, paper-thin slices of potato were fashioned in a manner to have the rough appearance of a rose, sitting in a luscious cheese-sauce, with the edges made crisp by finishing the dish under a hot broiler. The appetizer was delicious. Similar technique was used on the chicken breast, wrapped in pancetta, cooked perfectly, then finished under the broiler. The creamy, sundae-style tiramisu was top-notch. This was a fantastic lunch at a reasonable price in pleasant ambiance.

Unfortunately, the story doesn’t end here. I came back. Not once, but three more times, before writing this review.

On the second visit I tried the Frutti de Mar pasta. The pasta itself was acceptable, but the seafood, which had obviously been frozen, was like eating rubber. The small calamari were literally inedible. And the sauce was murky and had a bitter taste. I was dumbfounded. Was this the same restaurant that had served me that fantastic lunch a couple of days earlier?

What about the pizza prepared in that big, antique oven? I regret to say, it was horrible. Not just bad. Horrible. The crust was so dense, I could barely cut it. It was not as bad as the cardboard posing as pizza I had been served at Filo downtown a couple of years earlier, but it was close.

I returned one more time at lunch and had a pasta dish with sausage and a pomodoro sauce that was better, but still not impressive.

So, what it appears we have here is a stunningly beautiful restaurant that will score one of the highest ambiance ratings we’ve given for a casual dining restaurant and a relatively low score for unmatched inconsistency on execution of the menu.

The service is a mixed-bag. Most of the staff is friendly. But they’re young. Most have little or no experience as waiters and have been given little or no training. The result is service that is about as inconsistent as the food.

Fortunately, all this inconsistency wasn’t overpriced. This is one of the best priced menus in the city. Unfortunately, food that’s not palatable, no matter how low the price, is never a value.

Napoles has the potential to be one of the best restaurants, not only in Buenos Aires, but in Latin America. But the owner’s lack of restaurant experience is glaringly obvious and as a result, Napoles is nothing more than the poster child for untapped potential.