COOKING AT HOME IN POSITANO - Italian Food & Travel Blog

COOKING AT HOME IN POSITANO: When I travel to Italy, I mostly look forward to food (and prosecco). But eating in Italy does not only mean visiting dozens of restaurants. To get to know the authentic Italian cuisine (one of the reasons why 58 million tourists visit Italy each year) you should visit a real Italian home. And if you don’t have any Italian friends in this country, I have good news for you. Peter Capraro invites you to his home, to one of the most beautiful villages on the Amalfi Coast, Positano. Experienced chef whom I had the great pleasure to get to know in the summer of 2018, will show you what it means to live “la dolce vita”. How to prepare the most creamy risotto? How do an organic ruccola and tomatoes from the foot of Vesuvius taste like? Do you want to pick lemons from a Garden on the Amalfi coast? What to watch out for when buying Prosecco? Have you ever wanted to drink a fantastic biodynamic wine from Montepulciano in Toscana? Where does the best truffle oil come from? All these questions will answer you, and the best biodynamic local food from the Amalfi, Campania and Toscana neighborhoods will serve you, professional chef, with a history of experience right at his home place. An unforgettable atmosphere, full of the finest delicacies and wine at an Italian’s home who comes from a fisherman’s family, will recharge your batteries and leaves you with beautiful memories for a long time. And if you are still hesitating if it is worth to visit Positano Home Cooking, here are my 4 serious reasons why to book this unforgettable experience:

1. A unique location and the view

Positano, Italy. Is there any more beautiful scenic village on the coast of Amalfi where you can learn about Italian cooking and food? Exactly. There isn’t!
Apart from the fact that Peter’s Cooking Class is in Positano, one of the best things in this cooking class is also the beautiful view from the small terrace which is just outside of Peter’s cooking studio. You can be enjoying all the meals being prepared during the evening right outside on this fabulous terrace, in the Peter’s little villa built in the 13th century. Its unique location just a few steps down to the beach (7min walking) and few steps away from the main road and the well known “Cafe Positano” allows you to see the most beautiful corner of Positano including the main beach of Positano, Sirenuse Hotel and the church. Stunning. You have to come and see it yourself!

2. The hospitality

Cooking is not always just about the food and the food is not always just about the actual cooking. It is about sharing. Laugh. Care. The joy of enjoying it! Exactly that and much more is easy to be found at the Peter’s Home Cooking Class. Not that we just ate well, but we had also so much fun and good freaking laugh! Peter has always kept us in a good mood (also by liters of wine, lol ) and his witty style of sharing much-appreciated information about Italian passion for good food has wakened up in many of us guests a lust for more and more of this authentic experience.

3. The wine (cellar)

Alright alright. People who know me are aware of the fact that I loooove good wine and I enjoy drinking wine in a good company. But at Peter´s, it is not just the wine which got me. His private generous wine cellar did. Amaaazing! There is a tremendous choice of reds, whites, proseccos, archive wines and what I found out later on, Peter also has his olive oil.
I mean olive oil from a small Tuscan farm, where he buys good quality stuff and then keeps it in a big stainless steel tank right down in his wine cellar. If you are lucky and Peter has enough of it, you can buy some. But back to the wines. The dinner at Peter´s place begins with opening some good D.O.C.G. (Italian for controlled and guaranteed designation of origin) prosecco from Valdobbiadene which has been made by the CHARMAT method. After some starters made of the fine Italian meat, ruccola and fantastic balsamic vinegar (and of course prosecco), comes the Primo Piatto (we had the best risotto ever!) a.k.a the first course which is accompanied by some of the really good white wines e.g. D.O.C.G. Verdicchio 2016 or Vermentino from Sardinia. Following Primo, Piatto was the secondo piatto, in this case, a tender moist steak accompanied by a wide selection of red wines from Peter’s wine cellar. I don’t know exactly how many bottles Peter opened for us but I remember that I stopped counting after the 9th bottle. You just have to visit to believe it!

4. The actual food

There are many places in Positano where you can eat well. This tiny little village is one of few in Italy, where you cannot find restaurants with a virtual label of “tourist trap”. But, before you spend your money in a high-end restaurant on the top of the hill with no clue where the ingredients come from, consider Peter´s Home Cooking Class again. All ingredients Peter uses are of bio-dynamic origin, local and 100% Italian. You can taste the difference when you put a slice of butter into your mouth which comes from a farmer near Naples who only breeds 14 cows and all are fed of grass and no chemicals. Or a good piece of prosciutto di Grotta from wild pigs which have been aged in a cave for 30 months. All these “little” details make a huge difference in the taste of the food. And I am glad that I had the ultimate chance to taste it and see it.