Al Fortino, Bari

It’s always the way, you find the best places on the last day and that’s precisely what happened to us. Following an unsuccessful day’s cycling, we stumbled across an older looking piazza (Piazza Ferrarese), close to the port. Surrounded by restaurants, pizzerias and bars, we kicked ourselves for not finding it earlier as there were so many places to choose from. However, for a Friday evening, it was still pretty empty! We eventually settled on Al Fortino as it offered a reasonably priced set menu and had a lot of seafood on the menu.

The restaurant was empty on arrival, but it started heavily raining outside so we didn’t mind so much. Despite the lack of customers, it looked welcoming with its thin rectangular build and square wooden tables. I’d intended not to drink but the alcohol in Bari seems to be cheaper than the water so we decided to share half a litre of the house white (3 euros). I found out tonight that Peroni is Pugliese, so that explains why you see it everywhere, and for so cheap.

The house white wasn’t so great, but when washed down with bread, it was bearable. We ordered a margherita pizza and insalata miste di mare for our antipasto as we fancied something relatively healthy and I wanted to try authentic evening style pizza barese. The salad was nice enough, definitely big enough to share but some of the fish didn’t taste as fresh as it could have, especially considering the restaurant’s proximity to the coast. The pizza, although gigantic, was incredibly thin and very easy and quick to eat. It tasted almost like a cross between crackers and burnt toast. There was me warning Lucy that she might not want to eat all of the bread…

We had the special of the day for ‘primo’, which was a rice and potato dish with mussels and tomatoes. I’m not the biggest fan of such a carb overdose but Lucy seemed to enjoy it, when seasoned with a little salt. I ordered the spiedini di carne which is essentially a meat kebab. It wasn’t much to rave about, and I’m still not entirely sure what the meat was, but by this point, having ordered another half-litre of red wine, the merriness made everything taste better!

We decided to have pudding at another restaurant on the square, and oh wow did that steal the show. We shared hot chocolate and chocolate soufflé and these were definitely something you’d write home about. The hot chocolate was like a thinned down chocolate fondue and the soufflé was just like a chocolate melt-in-the middle cake, utterly incredible. I’m so glad we shared otherwise I think I’d definitely need to start shopping for a new wardrobe!

Recommendation (2.5 / 5)

I personally wouldn’t recommend Al Fortino as there’s so many other places to choose from in such a small area. However, if you fancy something cheap and reasonably good quality, it’s not a bad shout.

Extra Information:

Address: Via Re Manfredi, 14, Bari

Phone: 080.5212815

Website: No website

NTK: If in doubt, order the house red wine - it’s a lot more enjoyable.