Unassuming and cosy restaurant serving wonderfully unpretentious and freshly sourced dishes

Tucked away in the narrow streets of Venice is this restaurant barely big enough to have 20 covers and as such, two sittings through the evenings are required with a complete change over of diners for the whole restaurant at roughly 9pm. This was actually the main negative aspect as you are pretty much against the clock when dining here for that reason and the size of the venue meant that it will not be wholly suitable for those hard of hearing.

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However, bad things out the way first because the bottom line with this lucky find I was shown, is that those minor negatives were hugely outweighed by the lightening of overall effect with some of the dishes had here. The soft shell crab which was cold with natural oily and balsamic goodness was frankly the best food moment of the whole trip. Such wonderful flavour and you know you have struck gold when you are sad there is simply no juice or sauce left on the plate to soak up with breads. The squid with supporting glaze and lemon was another triumph – so fresh, untampered and with perfect residue of the grill. The turbot was equally succulent and with its simple garlic butter sauce and light mushrooms was very pleasing. Molluscs prevented me from trying the spaghetti but the side of vegetables were done well and the chocolate cake dessert was nice and chocolatey but also not heavy at the same time. Strangely, I found the tiramisu the only part that was only ok (a little too much moisture in the sponge for my taste).

The beauty of this meal was its simplicity – the fish and natural ingredients really did the talking here and there were powerhouse moments as well to my delight, as these do not come every day, even at 3 Michelin starred venues. The venue is very small, but I actually liked the cosyness and this added to the warm atmosphere and this was a quality find in a similar fashion to discovering 22 Ships in Hong Kong.

Food Grade: 81%