Our Story
From 1960...
A galleon on the mainland Il Pirata, a restaurant overlooking the sea on the Amalfi Coast!
In the 1960s, Casimiro Milano was a citrus fruit trader. He brought them from the Amalfi Coast to the general market in Rome. Hard work, and not even profitable. But there wasn't much choice in those years. We lived on fishing, agriculture and trade. Tourism only touched Positano and Amalfi. Praiano was an unknown village, with one exception: the Africana , a night club in a cave overlooking the sea next to a Spanish watchtower. A unique location, which has become a reference point for the Dolce Vita of the Neapolitan area.
Finding the 4 million lire to pay to the owner of the land was the easiest part, as that money would not have given him a bar, but a mountain. “To make the bar it took first the gunpowder, for the initial excavation, and then months of pickaxe shots” Casimiro recalls. Even in the most difficult moments, when the storms were more threatening, Casimiro never doubted that he had made a mistake. Indeed, the more time passed, the more he became convinced that he wanted to move forward. The transition from bar to restaurant was as casual as it was natural.
A very risky idea came to Casimiro: to buy a piece of mountain near the Africana, on the other side of the tower and just ahead of the beach of La Praia, and open a bar for us. He had no experience. Nor did his wife Pasqualina, a young Neapolitan girl whom he had met during his visits to his financier uncle. “I came from Naples to help my aunt” - Pasqualina tells - “Casimiro hid behind a fig tree and stayed to look at me. I liked him, he was a good boy and in October 1960 we got married ”. Pasqualina was a seamstress. And she knew nothing about bars. But she liked the idea too.
casimiro 1965
Il pirata praiano 1965