Bari Eats: La Tana del Polpo
We had just finished our half-day tour of Bari, and we were going to be picked up in the early afternoon for the drive to Matera, where we’d have another half-day tour. So we had to squeeze in an early, quick lunch. Our guide recommended a sandwich place, but the ready-made sandwiches in the display case made me wonder how fresh they were.
The evening before, I had asked Michele, the host of our B&B Dei Cardinale, for some restaurant recommendations. La Tana del Polpo was one of the ones he suggested. Our tour guide negotiated with the wait staff to get us a table, even though we didn’t have a reservation.
The reservation seemed so hard to get, so we sat down to eat here. I had wanted to try the panino col polpo, or octopus sandwich which Bari is known for, and which La Tana del Polpo served (fittingly so, because polpo is in its name) - but it turned out it was not served at the sit-down restaurant, but rather only at the takeaway part! A lot of people eventually came looking for tables here.
Our guide said that we’d have time to have only one course, but the wait staff somehow convinced us that if we got the grilled fish platter, it would be just as fast. So we started with a fritto misto mixed fried seafood platter to start.
Then we waited an eternity for our grilled fish platter to come. There was also miscommunication here, because we thought that we would only get one order to share amongst us three, but it ended up being two orders, which was far too much food for us. There were two large tuna steaks, two big octopi, many medium shrimp, and several large prawns. We simply could not finish it all, especially because we had to run to our meeting point.
I was also disappointed that only the octopus seemed local to Bari, according to the waiter. I’m not sure where the other fish and seafood came from.
What’s worse, is that my mom got quite an upset stomach afterwards. I think it was from the prawns, which were barely cooked - I avoided most of the most raw parts, which I think could have been the cause.
In hindsight, it would have been better to just get takeout octopus sandwiches to eat calmly, or go to our tour guide’s recommendation of the sandwich place. Rushing this lunch also caused us to rush our gelato later!
