Cetara
- Food
- Spaghetti with colatura
Crowd level: Easy. Busy only at the obvious hour
Best season April–June and September. The coast road is calmer on a weekday morning. Do not drive it at dusk in August if you can help it.
Cetara is a fishing town on the Amalfi road that still leads with anchovies. The beach is a working edge, not a catwalk. You stop for one plate and you do not need to conquer the coast.
The short version
The town’s watchtower is the usual answer to old raids. Its real fame is colatura di alici, a fermented anchovy sauce in the family of Roman garum. The sauce is the history you can taste. The tower is the history you can walk past.
Food nearby
Spaghetti with colatura
Eat spaghetti with colatura, lemon, and nothing clever. Any trattoria that leads with that plate is the right one. Skip a multicourse sunset menu up the road in Positano.