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Ca Leon

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Ca Leon Reasonable for Venice City Centre

  • August 5, 2009
  • Rated 2 of 5 by Slug from Huddersfield, United Kingdom
Ca Leon Reasonable for Venice City Centre

After congratulating ourselves for always dining outside of the main tourist traps of Venice, for our final meal in Italy we decided to kill a couple of hours in a city centre restaurant. As well as convenience, it would affirm our view that eating off the beaten track is best both for value and quality. This was a kind of a "you have to eat the hamburger to appreciate the steak" experiment. In the end, the city centre dining experience proved us "know alls" to be right, but with the standard of the food at the Ca Leon it was a closer run thing than we imagined.

The restaurant is close to the main bus station in Venice, and on reflection, also pretty close to the train station. It would seem to make a good place to book rooms if you want to stay in the centre of Venice, as you won’t have to lug your suitcases more than a few hundred yards in this carless city. Having spotted the sweating hoards lugging their bags over humped backed bridges and into the distance, this is a fairly high priority. Although it is close to the transport hubs, it is also fairly close, say 15-20 minutes from Rialto Bridge, so you can perhaps get the best of both worlds.

The restaurant is at the edge of the "nice old part" of the city, and the outdoor tables face onto a quiet canal; a particularly nice spot, as many of the gondoliers take their boats past. As we dined we saw quite a few float past, one or two with music. The really nice thing was that we enjoyed the spectacle without having to open our wallets, or sit perched on uncomfortable looking boat seats looking embarrassed.

The restaurant is in a nice traditional building, and I liked the look of the tables inside, with the flame coloured interior. Outside, we were treated to nice crisp tablecloths, and those ordering wine received it on a special silver stand.

So, onto the food at the Ca Leon; as it was lunchtime, I ordered a simple pepperoni pizza, and elected to dib into a little of my partners salad for the healthy portion. At 9 Euros, my pizza was the most expensive of our trip, and when it arrived, the smallest. While it was fine, it was a basic pizza, and not over endowed with topping, nor particularly good quality ingredients, nor anything over and above the basic description. I was happy with my meal for a lunch, although it would not qualify for a "blow out".

At least it was, as was standard for our stay in Venice, presented quickly. Our wait service was friendly and effective.

My beloved’s tuna salad was fine, but a little pricy at 12 Euros. Our large (0.4 litre) beers came in at 6 Euros each, which again was rather more expensive than we had been used to paying at our out of town pit stops. Add in the obligatory (for the city centre) 12% service charge, then our rather standard one course, and one drink meal came in at around 40 Euros for two, the price we were used to paying for a rather more substantial meal.

Considering we had chosen our restaurant fairly carefully, on the edge of town and a little off the beaten track, we were pleased we had decided to mainly dine outside of the centre of Venice. I’m sure the Ca Leon though is actually a pretty good and reasonably priced choice for the centre of mainland Venice.

From journal Venice - Italian Dining

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