Where to Eat in Sorrento: Named Houses, by District

Gnocchi alla sorrentina is the defining plate: potato gnocchi baked with tomato, fior di latte and basil, served in the shallow terracotta dish it was named for. Delizia al limone is its dessert counterpart, the lemon-and-cream dome built on the town's sfusato lemons. The fish houses of Marina Grande add the day's catch, usually grilled whole and priced by weight, which is the one bill in town you should check before ordering rather than after.

The old houses keep their own claims too: 'O Parrucchiano has served cannelloni as its invention since the 1860s, and the sfusato lemon itself, with its long, rough skin, grows on the terraces you can walk at I Giardini di Cataldo.

What the town does not have, say it plainly: no street-food tradition of Naples' density, no market hall worth a detour, and no dish you cannot get better on the coast's other side. The reason to eat here is the setting and the fish, not a pilgrimage dish; the town's eating question is really a harbour-versus-garden question, and the district table answers it.

Watch the working day and you will find the answer: the bars around Piazza Tasso and up Via Antonino Sersale hold the espresso-and-cornetto crowd until about 09:00, the delis and rotisserie counters of the station-side streets feed the working lunch, and the evening passeggiata empties the centre toward the harbour and the garden houses. On Sunday afternoons the families move in the opposite direction of the tourists, up to the garden tables off Via Correale and the side streets of Sant'Agnello, while the visitors queue on the square. None of this is a secret list; it is the shape of the town, and it is why the district table is more useful than another top ten.

One honest warning about 'where locals eat' claims: in a town this touristed, almost every house serves both rooms, and no citable source publishes a locals-only kitchen. What we can verify is who is in the published guides, which is what the directory prints; beyond that layer, judge a room by its menu language, its weights-and-prices board for fish, and whether the tables turn over.

The tiered reality: the highest view-to-plate ratio sits at the starred pair, Terrazza Bosquet over the bay at the Excelsior Vittoria and Il Buco's vaulted room a step off Piazza Sant'Antonino, where you pay for the cooking and the setting together. The harbour terraces at Marina Grande buy the water-level view, the painted boats and the sunset, at the town's most bookable premium; Da Emilia and Bagni Delfino sit on the best stretch. The garden tier, at the pergolas of 'O Parrucchiano and the grove-side tables above Via Correale, trades sea view for shade and lemon trees and usually the softest bill of the three.

No venue in this guide publishes its prices in the sources we verify, so the comparison is by setting and booking pressure, not by figure.

Practical booking arithmetic for the views: the harbour tables turn twice, around 19:30 and 21:30, and the sunset row at Marina Grande is the first to go in July and August; the starred houses want reservations days ahead in season; the garden houses absorb walk-ins on weeknights. If the view dinner is the point of the evening, eat at the second seating and drink the sunset at Villa Comunale first, which is free and the best terrace in town.

The coperto is the cover charge for bread, table setting and service that Italian restaurants lawfully add per person, and in Sorrento it is standard practice at the sit-down houses; it is not a scam and not a tourist tax, but it is a line on the bill you did not order. Service charge is usually folded into it rather than added separately, and tipping stays small: rounding up, or a few euros for a good evening, is the local range. Where a fish house prices the catch by weight, ask for the peso all'etto figure and the approximate weight before you say yes, because that single question is the difference between a fair bill and a surprise.

Menus print no cover figure by law in some cases and by habit in others, so ask once, in the first minute, and the rest of the evening is arithmetic.

None of the five points above is a Sorrento peculiarity; all five are Italian dining norms that this town, with its harbour economy, makes more visible than most. The costs page carries the meal-level estimates with their honest 'our estimate' labels.

• Ask the coperto per person before you sit; it is a lawful, printed-in-practice charge
• At fish houses, ask the price per etto and the weight of the fish before ordering
• Book the harbour and the starred houses in July and August; the lanes take walk-ins
• Check whether the menu prices are 'escluso coperto' so the bill holds no surprises
• Keep small cash; some laneside rooms still hesitate at cards under twenty euros