Trattoria Del Tempo Perso

No pizza, few pasta options. Is this really an italian restaurant? Fish and steak taste nothing special, you can eat it if you are very hungry, otherwise, boring. And for sure not cheap. In general, the staff are friendly, but kitchen lacks of inspiration.

Located in Porto Ceresio, is a little cute lakeside town with a nice boardwalk on the lake very close to the Swiss border, well just in front of the lake is located the town of Morcote, already the Swiss part... There are not many restaurants in this town, around 5 (2 or 3 restaurants, 2 pizzeria eateries, 1 sandwich eatery and they are always full... Outside of this “trattoria” is just like a normal inviting lakeside restaurant with no direct lake view but hidden behind plants, with their menu exposed; inside nice ambiance, clean, pretty decorated and inspiring... the prices are just those average for a lakeside restaurant, of course not cheap for Italian mid-class standards but maybe good priced for Swiss or German standards ... Regardless of the prices, their small proposal as classic Italian homemade cooking, well, let's discuss it... We had fried pumpkin blossoms which was just OK (oily ; main dish cheese and pepper pasta (bucatini cacio e pepe : the pasta noodles were over-cooked well maybe some people like over-cooked not “al dente”; the ravioli was just OK even though I had the impression that they were not fresh but defrosted but the sage and butter sauce (a classic sauce for the ravioli noticed that the sage leaves were not fresh but made from frozen (shrink leaves and currently is summer so plenty of fresh sage leaves can be found... and the “acciughe prezzemolate” which translated literally mean anchovy fillets with parsley.... we expected fresh anchovies cooked or marinated whatever way with parsley or whatever herbs instead they were those taken out from those anchovy fillets in oil jar or can, widely available at the supermarkets... and no trace of parsley... we know very well their flavor since we have those at home too... this dish (cost 9.00 euro and in the supermarket can get them at 3.00 euro more or less and still left over I would consider it an insult... The dessert? They offer “homemade” cakes but they are those taken out from those ready-to-serve cakes sold widely at the supermarkets (funny because had a slice of that exact cake days ago at home! , so another insult... The wine offered (a white Arneis from Piedmont is good, selection of wines not bad as well as the service... Fantastic for those who don't know how Italian cuisine should be; no offense for those who liked and appraised this place as great but in my opinion (and ironic the name of the place as “Time lost” or better “time wasted” better have a pizza and avoid this place...

Nice place, food was reasonably good but portions on the small side.

Bello e suggestivo lo scorcio ineguagliabile del lungo lago, ottimi piatti e ottimo servizio, cordiale e veloce

Scoperto per caso durante un viaggio al lago. tutto stupendo e molto buono, per non parlare dell'ottima accoglienza sia del personale che del proprietario. Torneremo!