Essencia Restaurant In Napoli

How fortunate we were to dine at this restaurant on New Year's Eve. Thank you to the entire team who allowed us to enjoy the seafood menu and for creating a magnificent meat menu for two. Thank you to the kitchen for introducing us to original flavors. Thank you to the waiters and waitresses who treated us to an exceptional evening with kindness and professionalism. Thank you for the party favors and fireworks. Let's start 2026 off on a high note.

We ordered the five-course tasting menu. The starters were endive with small pieces of oily fish and vinegar. The bitterness and acidity were perfectly balanced, resulting in a dish that tasted of nothing. Another trompe l'oeil, an immaculate white morsel that tasted of charcoal, and finally, hummus and a cracker that cleansed our mouths of the sooty taste with something I couldn't identify, something very neutral. I thought it was a welcome joke. After the starters came bread with a somewhat hard crust and another magical ingredient, house butter, which meant it tasted of nothing. Except for the completely flat charcoal. We moved on to the main courses. Lamb tartare—a bad start, with absolutely nothing, not even salt, a festival of neutral flavors, I thought. A dollop of mustard on the plate, which I desperately tried to grab, but it was barely a stain. Now for rice, with a fish fumet, they said, again completely tasteless, but this dish had a trick up its sleeve: a generous dose of dried tuna powder sprinkled over the rice. Rice and tuna, a sin. Bad. After that came pieces of some indescribable fish on a butter and pine nut sauce—lots of pine nuts. Very bad. At this point, I was fed up and wanted to leave. Next, a bite of something neither sweet nor savory with a lemon flavor…it must be to cleanse the palate and prepare for a spectacular dessert, I thought. The dessert brought us back to square one: a quenelle that tasted of nothing, not even sweet, on a small piece of puff pastry that was rather hard, like bread crust. Final note: it was a bit warm in the dining room, and the wine was at room temperature. Seeing the overwhelmingly positive reviews, I suppose we were just unlucky, but what I'm describing is what they put on the table. I'm giving it five stars so the chef can see that I, too, can be sarcastic, to put it politely.

Very nice restaurant in Santa Maria la Nova, we ate very well and were pampered!! The service is impeccable and the food very good and refined.

A gem in Naples. A gourmet restaurant with a wide selection of wines and sophisticated dishes. I went as a couple, we chose the tasting menu, and we were both impressed by the buttermilk risotto with lemon and candied onion, served with a fresh amberjack ceviche and its emulsion. Truly excellent value.

I had the set menu, my wife ordered à la carte, and we were both extremely satisfied. The set menu included dishes I would never have ordered à la carte, but they completely won me over. That's exactly how it should be!

The atmosphere is elegant yet understated. The food is excellent, with a wide variety, carefully prepared and served.

I'd like to, but I can't... the cuisine is refined but falls short of expectations. Extensive use of spices, unnecessarily excessive, so much so that they overwhelm the flavor of the ingredients. The quantity of food on the plates is decidedly small. Interesting wine list.

Amazing set menu and individual dishes, subtle and balanced taste associations, great wine pairings, very nice staff. Thank you.

It was a special gastronomic experience. It's a positive that they also pay attention to sensitivities.

Great experience, young guys with a lot of desire to do, it's not all perfect (this is my opinion) but I found this place to be a nice Neapolitan reality, outside the stereotype of Neapolitan cuisine with a nice research and originality, WELL DONE!!!!