Ventotene, Italy: Eating Here

The winds were favorable today, and we sailed all the way to Ventotene, an outlying island to the northeast of Procida that is actually in the Pontine Archipelago, not the Phlegrian. With gusts snapping in the sails, we made the 26-nautical-mile trip in a cracking three and a half hours. And we were famished from the journey.
Enter Benito Malingiere, the 84-year-old owner and chef of Ristorante Bar ?da Benito? where we sated our appetite. Cradled in a small bay that overlooks Roman ruins, the eatery has for 42 years been serving Pontinese staples such as garlicky lentil soup (cultivated on the island for centuries) and tooth fish grilled in the restaurant?s open-air kitchen. Benito, a bushy-haired, sweet-talking charmer, still mans the grill with a switch of rosemary that he uses to baste the meat in extra virgin, oregano, and mint. After every bit of fish had been picked from the bones and there were more dead soldiers on the table than full ones, the chef, who wears a Sterling anchor on a chain around his neck and was drinking white from a carafe by this point, serenaded us with Neapolitan love songs. The four svelte 20-something Roman girls at the table next to ours swooned and crooned the choruses along with him. Eating here, I?m finding, is as much about spending time and community as it is about simple nourishment.
The winds were favorable today, and we sailed all the way to Ventotene, an outlying island to the northeast of Procida that is actually in the Pontine Archipelago, not the Phlegrian. With gusts snapping in the sails, we made the 26-nautical-mile trip in a cracking three and a half hours. And we were famished from the journey. Enter Benito Malingiere, the 84-year-old owner and chef of Ristorante Bar ?da Benito? where we sated our appetite...
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