The premise of this expedition — Saturday-evening dinner at Quattro Passi, lodging within a walk of it, activities radiating ~30 km out — has a major fault. The whole tourist-accommodation complex was seized in January 2026 over building-permit issues [1], and the Mellino family confirmed on 18 May 2026 that the restaurant will not reopen for the 2026 season; the merits hearing is October 2026 [2]. The walking-lodging child surfaced this and rebuilt around it; the special-character lodging child did not, and reads throughout as if the 2-star were still operating — treat its dinner-anchored framing as written before the 18 May announcement, and verify everything booking-side. The 7-room Quattro Passi Relais next door still shows 2026 availability on Booking but is part of the same seized complex; get written confirmation that your dates will be honoured before paying [3].
This forces a choice the original brief did not. Plan B — keep the village, change the kitchen: Taverna del Capitano is a 1-Michelin-star restaurant-with-rooms on the same Marina del Cantone bay (Booking 9.3/10), trading off a 20-25 min uphill walk back from the beach instead of the 1-minute Nerano-village stroll [4]. Plan C — move the base: Don Alfonso 1890 in Sant’Agata sui Due Golfi is a 1-star restaurant with rooms in an 1890s house, 11 min by taxi from Nerano (~€12–15) [5], trading the village-walk for a different starred kitchen and a pre-Roman tunnel cellar.
The village overlap across all three substantive children is tight and worth crediting: Sant’Agata, Massa Lubrense, Sorrento, Vico Equense and Positano show up as both lodging zones and day-trip destinations. But the activities child’s strongest finding — that the one thing only Nerano-based visitors get is a Coop Sant’Antonio boat directly from Marina del Cantone (€60 pp, Capri or Amalfi loop) [6] — only pays off if you sleep on the bay. Move the base to Sorrento town and you’ve spent ~$80–100 each way in taxis [7] for a boat trip that’s equally launchable from Sorrento’s own marina. The Bay of Ieranto trail leaves from Nerano’s main square [8] and is the only Saturday-daytime activity that survives a late tasting menu intact — Path of the Gods and Pompeii both cost half a day of road time.
If the trip lands the right October weekend, there’s an unrelated bonus: 17 October 2026 lets you combine Napoli DevFest at Città della Scienza with a Saturday dinner back on the peninsula [9], and the week before (12–16 Oct) is the only marquee IT event on the peninsula itself — ICSO at the Hilton Sorrento Palace [10]. For drivers: 2026 Amalfi-side roads carry an alternate-plate restriction and aggressive ZTLs in Positano and Ravello [11], so any car-based plan needs to fall back to the SITA bus.
The unresolved question: with the anchor closed for 2026, is this still a Nerano weekend with a Taverna del Capitano dinner — or has it become a Sant’Agata weekend built around Don Alfonso 1890, with Nerano as the morning boat departure?