GOOD THINGS: VRASA, SORRENTO
01.04.2025 BEST OF THE COAST
Back in the day, when many farmhouses in the Campania region had only a single fireplace, other rooms would be heated by a circular brass or copper brazier called ‘a vrasera’ in local dialect. Sorrento native Francesco Gargiulo, whose family owns the waterside Soul & Fish restaurant (formerly Da Cataldo) in Marina Grande, decided to honour this ancient tradition by adopting it as the name of his new venture. It was modified from ‘vrasera’ to ‘vrasa’ in recognition of the inspiration behind the cuisine – the Neapolitan tradition of cooking food ‘alla brasa’ or on an open-fire grill.
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Vrasa opened in August 2022 in a former urban cattle farm that had been transformed in the 1980s into a tourist-oriented pizzeria. Entrance is via a narrow cul-de-sac off Via Santa Maria della Pietà in the heart of Sorrento’s centro storico. Suddenly, after ascending a double staircase, you’re in a cool, light-filled contemporary dining room surrounded on two sides by a large garden with al fresco tables, where events are organised and many of the vegetables used in the kitchen are grown.
There is no rigid division between courses at Vrasa: dishes are simply listed in rough antipasto-to-dessert order on a menu that includes grilled vegetables, fish and prized Black Angus steaks alongside simple plates like beef carpaccio or Mediterranean ceviche. Even pasta dishes like the spaghetti with rock samphire and limoni di mare (a locally-fished bivalve) are finished off over the grill as soon as the spaghetti is al dente, to bring a smoky note. This baptism by fire also extends to some of the desserts, like the flambé pineapple.
Owner Francesco is a trained sommelier. He has put together a wine list that he believes is a perfect accompaniment to the smoky and barbecued notes of Vrasa’s live-fire food menu. Many of the wines are from vines that grow in volcanic soils – in particular around Mount Vesuvius and on the island of Ischia. The wine tastings he leads here, with light-bite food pairings, focus on small producers in the Sorrento and Amalfi Coast area. Popular among locals around aperitivo time, Vrasa also takes its cocktails seriously. To take just one example, the whisky in its Old Fashioned is smoked in-house, in small batches.
Even the wood that chef Andrea Guarracini tosses on the restaurant’s hand-made Vulcano Gres grill is chosen for the flavours it imparts. Beech and chestnut are the go-to varieties, but the chef also keeps a basket of lemon tree suckers close at hand – offshoots that result from the natural, regular pruning of the trees. These lend intense citrusy notes to the foods they smoke.
Outside is the vegetable garden, a fruit orchard, and a grassy lawn bordered to the south by the remains of Sorrento’s town walls, parts of which date back to Roman times.
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This wide green space is used to host cultural events, parties and wedding receptions, far from the coach-tour and cruise-ship crowds.
Photos © Roberto Salomone
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