A few steps from the sea
Quattro Passi began in 1983 as a small family place above Marina del Cantone, the cove at Nerano on the Sorrento Peninsula, opened by Antonio Mellino and his wife Rita Vinaccia. The name means a few steps, roughly how far it stands from the water. Over four decades it grew from a trattoria into one of the defining tables of southern Italy, set among gardens and olive groves with the bay below.
The kitchen now runs under Antonio's son Fabrizio, with his brother Raffaele on the floor and the cellar. In November 2023 it took a third Michelin star, the first three-star restaurant in the Italian south for more than twenty years, and has held all three in the guides since.
The peninsula on a plate
The cooking is contemporary Mediterranean rooted in the Campanian coast: the citrus, the vegetables and the fish of the peninsula, read through precise modern technique. The area's own dish, spaghetti alla Nerano, courgette and the local provolone del Monaco, stays on the menu as a fixed point, alongside more elaborate plates such as the Fiore di Loto seafood salad that draws people the length of the coast.
It is refined food that never forgets it grew up beside a beach. The service is a family's, warm rather than starched.
Between two homes
The restaurant is in the middle of the biggest change in its history. The Mellino family has joined the Romeo Collection, and Quattro Passi is leaving the Nerano cove for a new address within Massa Lubrense, part of a hotel due to open around 2026 to 2027, with the family keeping the kitchen. At the time of writing the original dining room at Nerano is closed for the move.
It is worth knowing before you plan a table: the cooking that made this stretch of coast famous is moving a few headlands, not disappearing.
Refined food that never forgets it grew up beside a beach.
The table that turned a Nerano cove into a destination, now carrying three stars to a new address on the same peninsula. Worth following wherever it lands.
VANE selection. Chosen with a critic's eye and judged independently. It's here because we judged it, not because it paid. This is a researched profile, not yet a first-hand VANE verdict; where we have eaten there, the review says so.
Image: A dish at Quattro Passi. Photo: Quattro Passi / Vincenzo Aiello (courtesy of the restaurant)
