Trabocchi Dining

Heaven awaits

We have been on an evening tour and we get there as darkness is falling. Which is why we narrowly miss being flattened by a family of cyclists out late on the Ciclovia Adriatica. They alert us with friendly shouts and a trill of bells and we jump back to let them pass. Off they go, their bicycle lamps twinkling like fireflies in the fading light.

Safe once more on the other side, we descend towards a tiny pebble beach, at the far end of which are steps leading up to a trabocco-restaurant. It is ablaze with light, like some unearthly spacecraft that has just landed on its crooked spindly legs.

An exuberant party of young people have found a strategic spot to take photos. In the dusk their white clothes are so resplendent they resemble a host of angels. There’s no need to ask. They obviously have reservations to eat on the trabocco.

We don’t. But we follow them anyway along the beach and up the steps to the rickety gangplank leading to the door of the trabocco.

Trabocchi Dining: Heaven on Stilts

And there it is. Elegance, class, charm, style, refinement, and romance, all in this single, simple room suspended over the sea.

Do you have a reservation? asks the young maitre d’. We confess that we don’t but she kindly allows us to look around anyway.

The platform, or deck, is polished wood. Overhead are exposed beams. The tables are set with white cloths. Glasses and cutlery gleam. The waiters are unhurried, voices are hushed. As our angel friends take their places we try and fail not to look awkward and envious.

There are no walls as the plastic tarpaulin has been drawn back on this hot August night. Just beyond the tables and the wooden deck is the sea. It’s easy to forget you’re not on a boat, an illusion reinforced by the pulleys and ropes suspended from the ceiling and the rigging of the trabocco just outside.

Before leaving we make enquiries. Yes, advance bookings are required. Next summer? A bit too far ahead: a week or two is sufficient.

It seems uncouth to ask the price. But what the heck, by next summer she’ll have forgotten us. 70 euro per person she answers, excluding wine, for a set menu of seafood.

See you next summer, then, we think as we exit and disappear into the darkness, leaving heaven behind us.

We visited the Trabocco Punta Cavaluccio, Rocca San Giovanni, Province of Chieti