Il Buco

We were treated to a wonderful meal in this spectacular historic building with tasteful contemporary artwork in the heart of Sorrento city center. Chef was kind enough to offer us a tour of the kitchen, where we met his son and daughter and took a picture with him. We sat in the cave and enjoyed wine and a perfect Manhattan, along with wonderful tastes from the land menu and sea menu. It was a perfect moment in time for us and the food was exceptional. Thank you, Chef, family and Il Buco team! Continued success and blessings in the New Year! 🙏🏼🍷💗⭐

Do not be fooled by the price that google says it costs. Your meal can cost whatever you want it to but it will be THE BEST CULINARY EXPERIENCE ever! Our food was absolutely delicious. We came for a drink and an appetizer and left filled. We started with an array of incredible breads, pasta with lobster and burrata, and a dessert which was divine. Our waiter Giuseppe made incredible wine and dessert suggestions for us. I wished we had been here for a full dinner. I’d recommend just letting him select your meal for you.

Wonderful experience! I had the lobster appetizer, gnocchi first course, and sea bass second course, plus a pisco sour cocktail. The food and cocktail were amazing, the ambience was really charming, and the staff was beyond kind. After my lunch the staff went out of their way to help me find a shop that I had been looking for all day. I was very grateful for everything 🫶🏻

Was recommended by a trusted friend and local from a prominent nearby 5 star hotel. We done the seafood degustation menu with wine pairing. The food was phenomenal and the wine was better. Chef Pepe even greeted us at the end.

The good: the wine (abundant and very well priced) and the atmosphere were refined and very pleasant, when we started with this I was very excited to see what else the restaurant had to offer. The bad: everything else. While the service was friendly, they are so far under the Michelin standard: from forgetting dishes and drinks, to not being attentive at all, it was a real shame. The food, which we ordered a la carte, was just so disappointing that it genuinely made me sad. As someone who’s been to hundreds of Michelin stars across the world, this restaurant was nowhere close to the acceptable standard. While the presentation was beautiful, they forgot the most important piece: flavor. I wish this team the best, but I cannot in good faith recommend this restaurant to anyone looking for a taste of the Italian Michelin experience.

Excellent tasting menu from start to finish. We chose the Sea menu, featuring absolutely incredible Risotto, Linguine, and Seabass. The creamy lemon dessert was a mind blowing finish to the meal. The inside ambiance was modern and chill and a pleasure to eat in, with a nice professional staff. Fortunately we were able to thank Chef Pepe on our way out and he was very appreciative, as his signature dishes were simply amazing!

Our dining experience was off to a rocky start as soon as we arrived. We were shown to a table buried in a dark stairwell filled with an endless parade of pedestrians exiting the local marina. The space was dark, noisy, echoed loudly of the road traffic below, and really unpleasant. Thankfully, they were kind enough to move us to another table that was also outside along a pedestrian walkway. The setting was much nicer though. The only problem was that we were in the middle of a heatwave. Within a couple minutes, we were sweating like crazy. It was pretty unpleasant to eat in a sauna. By the middle of the meal, our bodies were coated in a thin sheen of sweat. The bar around the corner was also pumping loud techno music with heavy bass. The music was great for a club, but not befitting a white tablecloth dinner. The service was very mixed. A few of the servers were very diffident and had zero politeness. Many of the waiters didn't even look at us as they were speaking to us when explaining the dishes. It felt borderline rude. Our head waiter was nice though. We paired our meal with a bottle of the Pietradolce Archineri 2018. The complete menu was: 1) Brioche with eggplant mousse 2) Zucchini muffin 3) Bread with tomato sauce and sausage meat 4) 7 different types of homemade bread and breadsticks 5) Steamed lobster on crispy waffle with fennel and paprika cream served with puntarelle salad and confit tomato. The dish was topped with freshly shaved black truffle, a lovely touch. However, This dish should have been much better. It was strange to serve cold sauce over warm lobster. Also, parts of the fennel was tough and the waffle was underwhelming 6) Seared octopus on Luciana saucе, served with black olive soft bread, broccoli, and mandarin mayonnaise. This dish was ok. Good but not really a standout 7) Risotto with sea plankton, mussels and almonds. Another ok dish 8) Linguine with lemon scented scorpion fish roe fish and sundried tomato. The pasta was cooked *way too* al dente (too undercooked for my liking) and the sauce was just a tad too briney. Not delicious at all. Barely edible. 9) Because we couldn't really eat the previous dish, they were kind enough to serve us an alternative pasta: Homemade tagliolini pasta flavoured with red pepper, clams, river chillies and ginger mayonnaise. This dish was quite good 10) Seabass fillet flavored with lemon potato nocerino onion and crunchy vegetables. The fish was super fresh. This just was solid and my favorite of the whole lineup. 11) Apricot cake with caramel topping and vanilla cream 12) Creamy lemon dessert with a froth of limoncello 13) 3 different petit fours

Excellent dinner and excellent service. A trio of amuse bouche to start, then had the salmon risotto and the scorpion fish linguine, which was a standout dish. The sea bass was cooked perfectly and delicious as well. We treated ourselves to two desserts as it was our honeymoon, and the “tiramisu” was a beautiful end to the night. Overall the best meal we had in Sorrento, accentuated by the great, attentive service.