Venice - Italian Dining

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.

We passed by the Pizzeria Al Corso a couple of times on our way to and from our hotel, to the centre of Mestre, and decided the pizzas smelt too good to ignore. We had also stopped for a beer one evening and found it at 3.50 a bottle, rather than the rather scary six Euros in the centre of Venice. While it wasn’t the plushest of places, the restaurant offered a good and reasonable feed in a lively and clean family atmosphere.

The restaurant is on the end of a modern block of shops and housing, right by the side of the main road into Mestre. They make the best of a bad job by screening the outside area with hedging, but the cheap plastic garden furniture didn’t make the place the most inviting, although the tables were liberally covered with dark pink linen. Once again we had chosen a very popular restaurant with locals, and the tables soon filled up around us. The interior of the restaurant was nice and clean, with a very tempting looking food display area. There aren’t too many tables inside, and the restaurant is small.

I always thought that Italian kids had impeccable table manners, whereas British children are generally just brats in restaurants, with parents bringing an army of toys just to keep their little darlings entertained for an hour while they ate. Unfortunately, the Italian family next to our table proved to be just as attention span deficient, and our meal was sadly punctuated by bored and posturing children. It says something for the food at the Pizzeria Al Corso that I still rate the place so highly.

The waiter was a hardworking and good looking young lad, always with a smile on his face, and a little time to chat to the ladies, and play with the kids. I don’t think he sat down during the duration of our visit. I ordered the seafood pizza to be accompanied by salad, and my beloved also ordered pizza. There was also a full choice of pasta, anti pasta and main courses. The house wine was something of a steal at 10 Euros a bottle, and a lively young red. In Italian fashion, the red wine arrived chilled.

Before our meal, we shared a bowl of fresh bread, for which a small table cover charge was made.

When my pizza arrived, it looked like a Seafood graveyard. Nice fresh mussels, prawn, scampi and clams all in their shells on my lovely fresh and simple pizza. While it took a while to rescue my meat from their shells, and risking third degree burns on my fingers from the hot fresh cheese, the effort was worth it. The fish, the sauce and the base were all exceptionally fresh and delicious.
The only downside was that our salad never arrived, although I tried to catch the waiter’s eye; he was forever darting between tables and the moment soon passed.

Although it was a busy restaurant, the staff seemed quite content for us to linger and finish off our bottle of wine after our meal. We dismissed the idea of sweet as the pizza had been so filling.
At the end of our meal, we went into the restaurant to settle our bill, and discovered our hitherto efficient young waiter scrabbling through the waste bin behind the counter to retrieve our bill! This probably explained our lack of salad, as they had forgotten what we had ordered!

Our young man apologized for the lack of salad with a flash of eyelashes and white toothy smile, and knocked the price off the bill with a flourish. Once again, in the outskirts of Venice, you don’t have to worry about the 12% obligatory service charge, and our meal came to 34 Euros before tip.

I wouldn’t necessarily recommend a special trip to the Pizzeria Al Corso, but it’s a good quality and reasonably priced pit stop for those staying in Mestre.

We decided to stay in the town of Mestre, just over the main bridge to Venice for our recent trip. This would mean we could afford better quality accommodation, as hotels in Venice itself are very expensive.

We also avoided the "trolley run" in the centre of the car-less city. Judging by the numbers of sweating tourists lugging their suitcases over the humpbacked canal bridges in the centre of Venice in the midday heat, our decision proved a good move.

Another benefit of staying in Mestre was that our evening meal costs tended to be cheaper. A bar close to our hotel sold beer for three and a half Euros; the same beer in the city centre would cost Six Euros. Assume you sink a fairly restrained three beers each on an evening; it would save a couple 15 Euros a night. Over three nights, this would prove to be a considerable saving.

The downside of Mestre is that it is an unexceptional, and in places, an ugly town. It is at the heart of the industrial hinterland around Venice, and the town centre itself is largely a 1960’s built shopping centre. It was almost like spending a weekend in Basildon in the UK.

Fortunately, we spotted a couple of good restaurants in Mestre. One was the Pizzeria Garibaldi on the edge of the town centre, and in a rare older part of town. The Pizzeria Garibaldi is a large and very popular restaurant, with a nice array of outside tables. I particularly liked the Pizzeria Garibaldi, as it seemed very popular with locals; being out here, it has to ensure its customers come back, and makes a special effort with the quality of the meal.

The only downside to the alfresco dining is the trendy bar opposite. First, it made me feel old and reminded me that fifteen years ago I would have been drinking at the other side of the street, sneering at the oldies having a boring meal and a glass of wine. Second, the music was fairly loud trance dance music. I didn’t actually mind the music (heh, perhaps there is still hope for me!), but it might not be to everyone’s taste.

Given the name, the restaurant specialised in Pizza, and I was dazzled with the full four pages of the menu devoted to the stuff. If you don’t fancy Pizza, there is plenty of other pasta and Italian choice. Rather than the Pizzas being perhaps 9-12 Euros as they are on the other side of the long bridge, here they started at 6.50, another little saving for this canny traveller.

To start our meal, the restaurant served us with a few fresh ciabatta buns. The bread was delicious, and added one and a half euros each to the final bill.

My pizza was the food highlight of our trip; I chose the spicy salami, roast red pepper, olives and mushroom Zingara, and was rewarded with a lovely fresh and heavily laden pizza. I was completely stuffed, but determined to finish off. I would have only regretted leaving some!

I ordered a side dish of tomato salad, and the waiter asked whether I wanted the tomato on the pizza, with the pizza or before the pizza. Unfortunately, the salad was a little bit of a disappointment, as it was literally two plain sliced tomatoes. I was kind of expecting a little fresh onion and a drizzle of basil infused oil. For an extra 50 cents, my beloved received the same two tomatoes, but mixed into a load of green salad leaves; this seemed by far the better choice.

To accompany our meal, we shared a large carafe of house wine. I am always disgusted when restaurants serve poor house wine, and fortunately, this was on the right side of reasonable, although nothing to write home (or to igougo) about. Unfortunately, the wine proved to be a very slight "rip off", as the wait staff had not provided us with wine prices, and we foolishly assumed it would come in at around 10 Euros (as it did elsewhere in Mestre). Fifteen euros didn’t break the bank, but it left a slightly bad taste.

Our service was good fast and polite, and although the restaurant was busy, they left us to linger to finish off our wine after our meal. Sweets were of the pre-prepared kind, although the local speciality, Tiramisu was home made. Unfortunately, our stomachs were too full to take a sample.

Overall, we found the Pizzeria Garibaldi to be a good solid choice, and reasonable value. As there was no automatic service charge included, our meal came in at 45 Euros for two.

Unfortunately, the centre of Venice can seem a little too touristy and plastic. Thankfully, down some of the backstreets there are still a couple of old traditional style bars and restaurants. These give a hint of what old Venice must have been like.

Classed as one of the Top 5 bars in Italy, by the Rough Guide, the Do Mori, located a couple of streets away from Rialto Bridge and near the old market retains its original Venetian style. The bar is a simple long skinny room, with copper pots hanging from the ceiling, and a couple of traditional spittoons lining the edge of the serving bar. Don’t panic, I didn’t see them in use during our two pit stops to the bar.

Thankfully, the hum of horrible drying and environmentally unfriendly air conditioning is far from this place, but the thick walls, and the narrowness of the street makes the inside a lot cooler and shadier than the heat of the streets. The building dates from the 1400’s, so there is plenty of history to admire.

The Do Mori might be thought of a place too intimidating for casual visitors and my beloved certainly expected the bar to be in the exclusive preserve of grizzled and angry eyed locals. In fact, on both our visits we found a pleasant and relaxed mix of both local and tourist.

If you visit, don’t be too hopeful of grabbing a seat as the long skinny bar only provides four bar stools. Instead, enjoy your wine on your feet. The menu consists of about a dozen choices of wine. Some wines are served by the glass, or you can order a few by the half bottle.

We enjoyed a fantastic glass of Italian champagne for three euros (Prosecco), served in the traditional wide and flat-bottomed glass. If you are the macho type then just grin and bear it, no one looks rugged while sipping from such a glass. For our second trip, we tried a glass of Rubino, a rich flavoured fizzy red, served chilled. I certainly recommend this choice if you are after something a little different, refreshing but with a bit of bite.

The Do Mori also serves Tapas and sandwiches. I can’t vouch for the food, but the Tapas in particular looked inviting. Overall, the Do Mori is an interesting place to linger a little while to take a pit stop from the madness of the crowds outside. The Do Mori is open til eight each evening, and not open on Sundays.

The centre of Venice in July is not a good venue for a relaxing, quiet and reasonably priced meal. It didn’t take us long to realise we needed to disappear far from the maddening crowds and slipped off on a water taxi to the nearby island of Murano. It turned out to be a good use of the six and a half Euros cost of a single boat trip, particularly as we managed to "stowaway" on the return hop to Venice island (no one approached us for our fare on the busy return leg).

Murano is petty much like a slightly less spectacular Venice, but you can do all of the typical Venice things without having to barge through hordes of people. Once we had our fill of exploring canal streets, bounding over hump back bridges and exploring (cheaper and better quality) Murano Glass shops, we decided it was time to eat.

Unlike the main island of Venice, Murano restaurants do get quiet after the main lunchtime session, and some restaurants close at three. We fell upon one of the larger restaurants in town, the Trattoria Busa Alla Torre, perched on a main square by a clock tower, and found them still serving food at around 3:30.

The restaurant didn’t look particularly promising, as the outside tables consisted of bright yellow cloth clad plastic patio furniture, but we gamely elected to go for the tourist menu at 12.50 a head. This offered three simple choices of starter and main course. Those wanting a more detailed choice can eat from the extensive (and more expensive) main menu. To be fair, the interior of the restaurant looked a lot nicer, and all of it was certainly clean. There is a terrace restaurant area upstairs, which also looked very pleasant (and in fact, was probably a nicer choice to the gardens). Those on a tight budget need to be aware that the restaurant charges two and a half Euro table cover per person, and a rather hefty 12% service charge (although this is fairly ubiquitous throughout Venice).

For our starter, we chose the spaghetti and clams, and I liked my simple, filling, but very fishy tasting dish. I guess they add a good fish stock to the tomato sauce, as there wasn’t too many little clams. The meal came with a couple of very fresh and locally produced bread buns, and balsamic vinegar and olive oil for drizzling.

For our main course, we both chose the calamari, and were rewarded with a small but very fresh dish of deep fried battered calamari and squid, with a small cube of traditional fried salty polenta (semolina). I had chosen a green leaf side salad, and received a very fresh and tasty bowl of lambs lettuce, while my beloved, who isn’t watching her weight, had fries. I loved my main course, and although it wasn’t huge, found it had filled us up adequately for a lunch meal. The only downside appeared to be that our fried fish had been placed on a paper doily, which meant that after a few cuts of the knife, we were eating bits of delicately cut out paper with our meal!

We chose a bottle of the house white wine, a strangely deep coloured, but young and very tasty Pinot Grigio, which was good value (for Venice) at 9 Euros.

Unfortunately, the restaurant doesn’t seem to own any cats, and as we dined and the remaining diners left, we found ourselves surrounded by some rather overeager pigeons, who attempted to hop onto our table while we ate. If you have an aversion to "Hitchcock: The Birds" moments, you might want to insist on dining inside or perhaps upstairs on the terrace. To be fair to the restaurant, they do supply a fresh clean tablecloth for each new dining party.

While the wait service was very effective and friendly, the waiters were obviously keen to pull off their uniforms, and put their feet up in the shade after a busy lunchtime. We found tables being packed away, and our plates removed almost before we had put our cutlery down. Still, our bad for eating so late, I guess.

Overall, we thought the Busa Alla Torre was a reasonable, if not "must do", choice for lunch on Murano; the food and house wine was certainly filling and good. The overall cost of 41.30 Euros for two was probably slightly below average for our Venice dining experience.