The Bar del Porto is my favorite place to hang out in Panarea and the closest thing to a…read moreneighborhood café the island has to offer. The name of the place - The Port Café" in Italian - is no accident. Getting off the ferry or the hydrofoil it's the first place you run into morning or night, and usually my first cappuccino breakfast of my visits to Panarea I have right here, just after we hand our bags off to one of the golf-cart taxis owned and operated by Angela and her family.
The cappuccinos and croissants are good, the sandwich selection good enough, they know how to do basic cocktails well and they service is usually very efficient. At cocktail hour (aperitivo) they bring out a decent spread and they leave the loud music to The Bridge and the other 1st floor patio bars nearby. Like every bar or café along the tiny port the view is gougeous: sail boats, yachts and the islands of Stromboli, Basiluzzo, Dattilo and Lisca Bianca..
My favorite thing they serve are are the granite - the original Sicilian slush puppies - either "al caffe" for a second breakfast or other flavors after dinner after a stroll through town. Their granite seven years ago inspired one of my first blog posts (http://carbonara.wordpress.com/2008/09/14/slush-puppy-heaven/ ) although the guy with the cinnamon no longer works there.