11 Best Restaurants in Venice, Italy
If you’re looking for the best restaurants in Venice, Italy, your search is over!
Venice is nicknamed the queen of the Adriatic, the city of love or the city of the Doges. But in addition to canals, gondolas and exceptional architecture, the city also boasts some of the best restaurants of traditional Venetian and Italian cuisine.
Tasting the dishes of authentic lagoon cuisine, with fish from the Rialto market, vegetables from Sant’Erasmo, and a whole other series of delicacies made in Venice, is an experience to live.
Best Restaurants in Venice
Riviera
Dorsoduro 1473 – Venice
The location of this restaurant is one of the most spectacular in the city, with a view overlooking the Giudecca and Molino Stucky. Inside we find two elegantly furnished rooms (which also house works of art) and 16 tables. If the place in itself invites you to stop here, the restaurant is a great place to eat in Venice to discover the revisited Italian cuisine.
You can choose from a menu that changes every day according to the products available, or let yourself be guided by the chef’s inspiration, with a choice of 8-course or 12-course menu.
Chef Samuele Silvestri has transformed the menu into a gastronomic journey that follows the history of Venice. The chef’s philosophy is to serve the best dishes with the best products, respecting nature.
From Lake Garda to Croatia, and in full respect of seasonality, here are 3 tasting proposals (“Underwater,” with fish, “Emerged land” with meat, and “Here and there,” a combination of the two proposals) in addition to the classic menu offer. The wine list is remarkable.
Local
Salizzada dei Greci 3303, Castello – Venice
A name that may suggest an English word, but which actually in Venetian means properly “Place where you eat and drink in company and in joy”. The restaurant of the chefs Benedetta and Luca Follin has as its philosophy to maintain a strong connection with Venice and the territory.
Inspired by the continuous change of seasons and the surrounding area, “Local” creatively reinvents traditional Venetian cuisine. They select the best organic ingredients from small local producers, trusted growers, and lagoon fishermen. Their cuisine also produces zero waste, as the ingredients are used entirely, and purchases are made based on the amount of work.
Even the wines are selected preferring only natural and artisanal ones. In addition to the cuisine, you can appreciate the modern and artisanal design of the restaurant: each chair, table, lamp and wine cellar are handmade.
Corte Sconta
Calle del Pestrin 3886 – Venice
In the path that leads from San Marco Square to the Arsenale, in calle del Pestrin, there is the “Corte Sconta”, a restaurant that opened in 1980 that has a menu that follows Venetian seasons and traditions. La Corte Sconta is a famous restaurant among the Venetians because here they eat excellent “moeche” (fried crabs typical of Venetian cuisine) and fresh fish, accompanied by seasonal vegetables.
This restaurant in Venice, housed in an old bottle factory, is in fact specialized in seafood and the tasting of fish is able to delight the palate of the most demanding gourmets. The main courses are a succession of fish such as, for example, sea bream, turbot, monkfish tail. All in a welcoming atmosphere.
It is advisable to taste mixed appetizers (among others: spider crab, creamed cod, mantis shrimp and baby octopus). Then continue with fish pasta and risotto, fried and grilled.
Glam Enrico Bartolini
Palazzo Venart, Calle Tron 1961, Santa Croce
The Glam restaurant is inside a sumptuous period building, the Venart Palace, a luxury hotel in Santa Croce, along the Grand Canal. The restaurant can accommodate up to 30 people, in a refined setting, with an elegant lounge for the winter and a summer terrace in the garden, amidst magnolias and a view of the Grand Canal.
Here you can have an essay on the cuisine of Enrico Bartolini, a talented Tuscan chef who has immersed himself in the lagoon cuisine by marrying raw materials of the deep-rooted Venetian tradition to precious other ingredients.
Three tastings are available: the smallest has 8 courses, including welcome and pre-dessert. Among the dishes on offer we mention: Egg cream, bottarga and bergamot; Burnt aubergine from Sant’Erasmo and pecorino cheese; Smoked cuttlefish with myrtle; Warm spaghetti, prawns and sesame; Rice wafer, peppers and anchovies; Black crouton, herring and salmon roe; Raw fish, Shiso powder and apple.
Oro Restaurant
Giudecca 10 – Venice
The Oro restaurant offers refined contemporary cuisine inside the luxurious Belmond Hotel Cipriani. Cipriani’s clientele is mostly international. Chef Davide Bisetto knows how to amaze daily with a different menu based on the freshest local ingredients. And in the summer 2020 the chef invented the restaurant with only one table, for 2 to 6 people maximum, with a menu that changes every evening. In the dining room there is him, the maitre d ‘, and sometimes his wife.
The menu includes 6 courses plus aperitif, dessert, and even the possibility of choosing background music. The high cost is justified if you compare it to the quality, the place, the spectacular panorama and the fact that you have a starred chef at your disposal for the whole evening, in one of the most magical places in Venice. Bisetto prepares the dishes in the kitchen and finishes them in the dining room, in front of the customer, and it is he himself who serves them, makes the portions and explains them. The Oro formula includes a menu made according to the chef’s imagination.
Osteria Da Fiore
Calle del Scaleter 2202, San Polo – Venice
Hidden in Calle del Scaleter, a few minutes’ walk from the Rialto Market, the Osteria da Fiore has transformed in a few years from a charming neighborhood tavern into an internationally renowned restaurant, deserving of 1 Michelin star. The spouses Mara and Maurizio Martin welcome their customers with typical flavors and a convivial environment.
The restaurant has a modern atmosphere, but the most coveted table, to be booked well in advance, is the one placed on a balcony overlooking a canal, for a romantic evening. The classy service and the interesting gastronomic proposals have consolidated the fame of this restaurant over time, which has become a real institution of taste in Venice.
The cuisine draws on traditional recipes with local products, such as creamed cod; the scallops of Caorle; spaghetti with caparossoli or liver Venetian style. The cellar has a good selection of the most sought after French and Italian wines, with around 800 labels.
Quadri
Piazza San Marco 121 – Venice
Overlooking San Marco Square, this refined restaurant is located on the second floor of the historic Gran Caffè Quadri, professionally managed by the Alajmo family. In a sumptuous environment of large sixteenth-century chandeliers and decorations brought to light by careful restoration, typical Italian recipes are offered with a touch of modernity.
The restaurant’s cuisine is entrusted to the chefs Silvio Giavedoni and Sergio Preziosa. Choosing between two tastings that skilfully reinterpret the classic dishes of the Venetian and Italian traditions is possible. The associations of tastes are bold, and the quality of the ingredients, coming from the Rialto market, is very high.
Among the dishes offered: cauliflower petals with caviar; tortelli stuffed with crab served with stracciatella and white truffle; tomato mozzarella with pesto and fresh bean purée; ravioli with burrata, clams, cuttlefish, shrimp and tomato; paccheri pasta with raw fish and pistachio sauce; black lemon risotto, capers and coffee.
Il Ridotto
Castello 4509 – Venice
Ridotto is a small and elegant restaurant that has only 9 tables. Born in 2006, thanks to the passion of chef Gianni Bonaccorsi, it offers its customers a cuisine strongly anchored to the products of the land and the sea that follow the seasons. But also dishes with combinations by contrast between acidic and basic ingredients and all the best local ingredients, always fresh. Various formulas with different tastings are available for both lunch and dinner. The Ridotto restaurant offers national and international wines. Next to the restaurant, there is also a superlative gourmet ice cream parlor.
Among the dishes on the menu we have: Sole with juniper, escarole and mandarin; Scallops, carrots with smoked black tea; Cauliflower, Scampi, and Almonds; pork tenderloin, rib and belly, mashed beans, green beans and raspberries. And as a dessert, white chocolate with bergamot, citrus caramel and grapefruit; Ricotta cold cream with pistachio, candied orange, and chocolate. The restaurant has won 1 Michelin Star since 2013.
Venissa
Fondamenta Santa Caterina 3, Isola di Mazzorbo – Venice
This starred restaurant is located a stone’s throw from Burano, in an ancient vineyard where the native vine, the “Dorona” of Venice, has been recovered. In the kitchen are chefs Chiara Pavan and Francesco Brutto, who prepare Venetian dishes with local ingredients.
They define their cuisine as “environmental,” and the lagoon biodiversity, including wild herbs and local fish, is an integral part of what is proposed in the dishes. Also, paying close attention to the “environmental issue”, and, therefore to the most current issues such as waste reduction, self-production, proximity supply, and seasonality. Three tastings are available (5, 7, or 9 courses).
Today from the vineyard of the restaurant, 3000 bottles a year of Venissa wine are born, one of the most sought-after wines by enthusiasts that in 2016 was judged by VinePair as the best white wine in the world, a unique wine with brackish notes that recall the lagoon and its aromas.
Antinoo’s Lounge & Restaurant del Sina Centurion Palace
Dorsoduro 173 – Venice
Located inside the Centurion Palace Hotel, the Antinoo’s Lounge & Restaurant is ideal for a romantic dinner overlooking Venice, thanks also to the terrace from which to admire the lagoon city. Inspired by a modern and refined design, you can choose between two rooms, one red and one white, overlooking the Grand Canal.
Chef Massimo Livan offers in his menu dishes created with great attention, following the Italian tradition and in a particular way the Venetian cuisine. An example of the Chef’s creations, based on fresh and seasonal products, are: scampi in “saor;” Venetian “soppressa” with grana cheese and mushrooms; bean cream with Treviso radicchio; pasta tagliatelle with seafood; veal liver Venetian style; green bean bamboo with ginger-flavored crab and licorice sauce; risotto with duck, granny smith apples and fresh dill; zucchini cream with goat cheese flakes and prawns in a herb crust; veal millefeuille with pear cream and pecorino cheese flakes.
Gio’s The St. Regis Venice
San Marco 2159 – Venice
A few steps from San Marco Square, directly overlooking the Grand Canal, Gio’s Restaurant & Terrace offers the unique experience of eating on the water among gondolas. The spectacular view of the Grand Canal from its terrace is priceless. You can book one of the most romantic tables for 2 in Italy: set up on a small private panoramic pier, it allows you to dine immersed in one of the most beautiful views in the world. The restaurant offers the classics of Venetian and Italian cuisine revisited modernly.
The Chef, Nadia Frisina, originally from Sicily, enhances the recipes of the Venetian tradition with influences from the Sicilian land, giving life to tasty and original dishes, such as Sant’Erasmo artichokes in a pan, pecorino cheese from Enna and black pepper; potato gnocchi with clams, parsley, and bottarga sauce or red snapper with seawater, potatoes with lemon and peas; tagliolini pasta with white truffle, mountain butter, and Parmesan.
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