ristorazione — Monterosso al Mare · Liguria
Among the lanes of Monterosso al Mare, the last village of the Cinque Terre before the border with the Levante, there is a restaurant that has kept twenty years of Ligurian cooking alive: a handful of tables looking onto the street, fresh ingredients from the local territory, and a family carrying the tradition forward.
On via Vittorio Emanuele, a few steps from the church of San Giovanni Battista, the entrance to Da Ely opens onto one of the most intimate lanes in Monterosso's historic centre. In summer the outdoor tables line the stone-paved street, and the scene of an open-air lunch, among the tightly packed houses of the Cinque Terre, becomes part of the meal itself.
Inside, the dining room tells twenty years of the Leonardini family's stewardship: an atmosphere reviewers describe as warmer in person than photographs suggest. The service is careful and attentive — Nicolò's name comes up again and again in comments as an example of genuine warmth and kindness, qualities guests themselves note are increasingly rare.
From the kitchen come the seafood specialities that have made the restaurant's name: the tris di alici (anchovy trio), spaghetti ai frutti di mare with clams, scampi and prawns, the octopus. The pasta is made in house, as is the bread; the desserts are entrusted to Lidia, the family's mother, whose tiramisù and panna cotta close the meal.
The dish that reaches the table is the destination of twenty years of precise choices: fish of the day, homemade pasta, a kitchen that never improvises.
