This restaurant is named after Enrico Caruso, one of its most loyal customers, who used to describe it as his “Neapolitan home”. One of Caruso’s greatest passions was cooking: “Tell me I’m a middling tenor, but don’t say I’m a bad cook!”. The recipe that was most successful, in particular among his Italo-American friends, was his bucatini alla Caruso, which continues to delight the guests of the Caruso Roof Garden, from where they can also enjoy the sublime panorama of the Gulf.

The historical importance of Pizzeria Brandi lies in the fact that one of the world’s best known dishes was created here. In 1889, during a visit by the royal couple Umberto I and Margherita of Savoy, the owner at the time, Raffaele Esposito, produced for the very first time a pizza made with just mozzarella and tomato. Queen Margherita liked it so much that Raffaele couldn’t resist naming the new pizza after her: and so the pizza Margherita was created.

Kukai is the name of a famous Buddhist monk and literally means “sky and sea”. But in Naples it’s a successful sushi bar chain. Ten metres from the original restaurant you will find Kukai Nibu. In Japanese nibu means “second part”, but here it also means “evolution”. Its contemporary design marks a daring stylistic break with the old buildings around it, and the restaurant itself has the feel of an exhibition of contemporary art. If you tire of Italian cuisine on your visit here, Kukai Nibu may be an interesting alternative, and a new and pleasing sensory experience in any case.

Opened in the heart of Naples, a stone’s throw from the Mergellina seafront, this rapidly became one of the city’s top restaurants lauded by national and international food and drink critics. With the city’s most enchanting and exclusive streets and historic buildings (such as Palazzo Fuga and Palazzo Abadir) so close, the Terrazza is one of Naples’ best loved meeting places.

Situated in the very heart of Naples, Scaturchio is perhaps the city’s most famous old pastry shop, providing a continuum between tradition and modernity in piazza San Domenico Maggiore. Scaturchio is a veritable mecca for gourmets and lovers of tradition, an institution for connoisseurs of sfogliatelle and rum babàs.

Founded in 1860, this prestigious café in the heart of Naples was an instant and resounding success with the entire population thanks to the work of its pastry chefs, ice-cream makers and barmen. It also received recognition as an official “Supplier to the Royal Household”. From the Belle Époque onwards it was frequented by famous names such as Gabriele D’Annunzio, Benedetto Croce, Ernest Hemingway, Oscar Wilde and Empress Elisabeth of Austria (Sisi) on her visit to Naples in 1890.

Located in the heart of Naples’ “bar” zone, Seventy is the ideal place for cocktails, with excellent music providing a background for a unique experience. With its art-deco sofas, wooden tables, dark walls and soft lighting, the atmosphere is extremely relaxing. Special evenings are organized for its customers every week.

At the end of the XIX century the scientist George Bidder Parker bought this old establishment, of which he was an habitué, and turned it into the hotel of choice for both travellers from northern Europe and Italian tourists. At the end of World War II it was renovated by Francesco Paolo Avallone, a lawyer who not only bought the building but also restored it to its original splendour. Every day, guests at the Grand Hotel Parker’s can relive the luxury, elegance and tradition of an old town house in Naples when it was frequented by Europeans on the Grand Tour.

The Grand Hotel Vesuvio is a part of the spectacular row of buildings at the eastern end of the promenade looking out over the Gulf of Naples. Built in 1880, this luxury hotel was an immediate success with the international travellers that came to Naples in that period. It was completely rebuilt after World War II when two floors were added giving it the appearance it has today.

In 1925, Carolina Finamore opened her first shop in the old part of Naples. She made shirts for a select and discriminating clientele in line with the precepts of Neapolitan haute couture, which, where elegance was concerned, dictated to the whole world. Today, the third generation of the Finamore family carries on the tradition of this old Neapolitan institution renowned for its fine tasteful creations, which include shirts, jackets, trousers, ties and accessories. Strada Consortile presso Consorzio Impreco - Tel. 081 2461827 - Open by appointment -

Naples’ opera house is one of the most famous and prestigious in the world. It is also the oldest working opera house in the world (it was opened in 1737) and one of the biggest Italian-style theatres in Italy. It was created at the behest of Charles III of Spain (on his saint’s day) and thus named after him. One side of the building is located in the street of the same name, with another side on Piazza Trieste e Trento. It was the symbol of a Naples that wanted to point up its status as a great European capital.

In 1914, Eugenio Marinella laid the foundations of one of Naples’ most fabulous success stories. At the outset, the shop’s main business was shirts rather than ties. To ensure that his garments were of the highest quality and in the forefront of fashion Eugenio persuaded some outstanding Parisian cutters to come to Naples to teach his people the art of cutting. As to the ties, they were exclusively seven-fold: the square was folded seven times to produce a tie of incomparable substance. The current tie, with its internal structure, appeared much later.

Borgo Orefici is an old part of Naples in the Pendino neighbourhood near the sea, bounded by via Marina and the Rettifilo (Corso Umberto I); it is a maze of narrow streets with piazzetta Orefici in the centre. The first certain description of the area dates from the Middle Ages, when the already numerous workshops there obtained official recognition from Joanna of Anjou and formed themselves into a corporation. The first master jewellers were French who arrived in the wake of the Anjou royals, but they were soon joined by local craftsmen who soon replaced them and created a Neapolitan tradition and school (renowned throughout Europe until the fall of the Kingdom of Naples). Later, towards the end of the seventeenth century, the Marchese del Carpio, viceroy of Naples, ruled that the art of silversmiths and goldsmiths could only be practiced in this Borgo, which is why all the oldest and most important gold- and silver- smiths and jewellers still have their workshops in this part of the city.

The long-established house of Talarico, founded in 1860, was the official purveyor of all sorts of umbrellas and fans to the Royal Household. It is one of the oldest artisanal businesses in Naples and has been making umbrellas for international celebrities for four generations. With their bone, ivory, silver and wooden handles, Talarico umbrellas still have a magical appeal. The vital spark of the business has been ably summed up, tongue in cheek, by maestro Mario Talarico: “Even if it’s not raining in Naples, it’ll be raining somewhere else”.

Tullierie was the first Art Nouveau and Art Deco boutique in Naples. Promoting these styles in sleepy, obstinately Bourbon Naples was a courageous act, if not pure folly. It focuses on the Twentieth century, from Art Nouveau to contemporary design, a passion that the founder, Tullia Passerini Gargiulo, discovered as a young girl, with fabrics (“I used to go the dressmakers with my mother and come home laden with offcuts”) and developed over years of study (including set design at the Accademia di Belle Arti) until it became her profession. The boutique is in an out of the way street and overlooks, unsurprisingly, the heart of Art Nouveau Naples, at the top of the Francesco d´Andrea steps in via dei Mille, not far from the famous Palazzo Mannajuolo and the Giulio Ulisse Arata buildings. “You don’t get casual strollers here; if you come here, it’s because you want to come here, you’re here for a reason.” And people come to Tullia, in fact, to peep into her art fabric samples: brocades, velvets and Venetian silks like the prized Fortuny fabrics of which she is an exclusive retailer.

Gianni Volpe is a famous Neapolitan tailor with so much experience he can spot the tiniest imperfection in a suit with a glance. He started up in 1993 and simply delighted the elite of Naples’ with his creations. He is one of the city’s most dependable tailors, managing to create that softness unique to Italian tailoring, with clothes that fit like a second skin. He has numerous clients both in Italy and abroad.

Leopoldo is a brand with a history rooted in Naples’s “tarallari”, when the alleys rang with invitations to try the hot taralli nzogna e pepe (lard and pepper taralli, small savoury snacks). Since the days of its founder Leopoldo Infante, the business has grown from a street-seller’s “barrow” to a brand that is a byword for excellent quality, and a range of products now sold in four shops in the city.

Here in the old via San Gregorio Armeno, also known as the “street of the shepherds”, the craftsmen who make traditional nativity scenes create the cast of characters, some traditional, others more irreverent and decidedly satirical. All the figures are made by hand in a tradition that goes back to the XVIII century and is world famous. They transport visitors into a magical Christmas atmosphere at any time of the year. For Neapolitan families, Christmas also means a trip to “San Gregorio Armeno”.

Reggia di Capodimonte is a royal palace in the Capodimonte district of Naples. It was the official residence of the Bourbon kings and queens of Naples and later of Bonaparte and the families of Murat and Savoy. The building was started in 1738 and intended by King Charles as a repository for the Farnese collection. It was later fitted out and served as a royal residence till 1957, when it

In the historic centre, lying between the waterfront and via Toledo, piazza del Plebiscito is one of the city’s (and Italy’s) biggest squares (around 25,000 m2). For centuries it was an ill-defined area where local festivals were organized around so-called “machine da festa” (decorative structures) designed by famous architects. It was only in the XVII century that the space was gradually “organized”, and only at the start of the XIX century, in the Napoleonic period, that it was totally redesigned and restyled by order of the Emperor. The square is now a venue for major local and international events, from election rallies to concerts and live tv broadcasts of national events.

Castel dell’Ovo stands an outcrop of tufa known as Megaride. According to one of the more bizarre Neapolitan legends, its name derives from an egg that Virgil hid in a cage in the Castle’s cellars. This place was heavily barred and locked, and kept secret because “All the fortunes of Castel Marino depended on this egg”. It is also where the Parthenope was built in the eighth century BC. This is the oldest castle in Naples and has undergone a number of transformations over time, some of which are still evident in the building today. It is currently the headquarters of the Culture and Landscape authority of the Campania Region.

Piazza San Domenico Maggiore is one of Naples’ most beautiful squares. It also a place of some significance in the city in that it marked the eastern limits of the Greek walls of Neapolis. Situated in the heart of today’s historic centre, it stands at the crossroads of two of the city’s major thoroughfares: Spaccanapoli (the southernmost east-west road) and via Mezzocannone (north-south axis). The square is named after the church behind the “Obelisco di San Domenico”; its main features are: the polygonal apse, the steps of the church, the obelisk in the middle, the XVI century Palazzo Corigliano, Palazzo Sangro di Casacalenda and Palazzo Petrucci.

Galleria Umberto I is Naples’ most famous shopping arcade. Built in just three years, between 1887 and 1890 (while Eiffel was designing and constructing his famous tower in Paris), it is still strikingly majestic in its structural complexity, with imposing arches at the entrances and two elegant pedestrian passageways with inlaid marble paving that intersect beneath a glass dome. It immediately became one of Naples’ major shopping centres, thanks in part to being surrounded by streets (such as via Toledo, via Santa Brigida and via Medina) that were popular with the locals for the ritual evening stroll.

One of the most fascinating natural sights in Italy is the Gulf of Naples with Vesuvius standing proudly above it. It has been the source of countless tales, anecdotes and songs full of typical Neapolitan affection. The rare beauty of Vesuvius emerging from the picture postcard panorama of the Gulf is a classic image in the Neapolitan collective imagination. Vesuvius is an active volcano 1,281 metres high with over 800 micro-seismic events a year, and for this reason is constantly monitored. The trek to the summit is open throughout the year, and the summit offers a stunning view of the city and, on a clear day, the islands of Ischia and Capri.