Raki Cafè

The natural wine movement arrived in Italy later than it did in France, and it arrived on Capri later still. Raki Cafe is the island's evidence that the wait was worthwhile: a daytime-into-evening venue with a terrace and a list of low-intervention Italian wines assembled with the kind of knowledge that comes from a genuine interest in producers rather than a marketing exercise.

The food exists in productive dialogue with the wine. Small plates rotate with the season and the market. Summer brings watermelon with bottarga and mint, marinated anchovies with preserved lemon, buffalo ricotta with honey and walnuts. Autumn shifts towards warmer preparations: roasted peppers with capers, white bean crostini, aged pecorino with local fig jam. Nothing on the menu attempts to compete with the island's fine dining establishments, and that restraint is precisely what makes Raki Cafe valuable: it is a place where the wine is the event and the food is its best possible companion.

The terrace catches the afternoon light from a position that avoids the main tourist routes, which means the crowd is self-selecting. People who have sought the place out rather than stumbled in from the funicular. The atmosphere has the quality of a wine bar in a city neighbourhood where everyone knows what they are there for and nobody performs for an invisible audience.

For a solo visit, Raki Cafe offers the particular pleasure of a table where sitting alone with a glass is not unusual. The staff are comfortable with guests who want conversation and equally comfortable with those who want to read. The wine list rewards interrogation, and the afternoon hours. Roughly 12:00 to 18:00. Allow a visit that extends naturally from a long lunch into the early evening without requiring a formal transition to dinner service.