Algiubagio Restaurant — Restaurant in Venice

A perfect dinner

My girlfriend and myself spend a couple of days in freezing cold February 2018 in Venice. She attended an academic meeting, and i joined her for the weekend. On saturday afternoon, we visited San Marco and wanted some cheap but great itealian food. Unfortunately, google lead us to a great pizza restaurant with exiting reviews, but closed in reality for winter season in spite of googles claims. Shivering from cold, and very hungry we had to revise our plans. An un-deserved portion of exciting luck lead us to Algiubagio, only a few steps away. I did a very quick check to the menu and decided to be capable to spend a budget of 3-4 pizzas tonight. It was one of the best decisions ever in my life. We opened the door and entered a place of pure delight. The restaurant is a piece of cutting-edge art and style, a 1:1 replacement of tuescan art transformed with a golden hand into the 21th century. The restaurant is a large room, formerly used for some kind of hands-on busines, decaorated with a superp sense of decoration. We were more than happy to win an intimate tale for two, without prior reservation. I fell inlove with tartar of tuna first, and some local italian beef (rare done). My girlfriend decided to stay vehetarian, something with aubergine an mozzarella. Based on the gorgious decoration, i lowered my expectation regarding the kitchen. Only to be surprised in the best way: All the food was excellent, best ingrediends you can expect, and cooked by experts. Every portion exceeded my expections by far with respect to taste, quality of indegriends, and expertice of the chief. When receiving the main course and taking the first bite, my first impression was to ask for salt. After a second, i realized the pure and original taste of the best quality of meat. Perfect meat. Adding of salt or any other spaces would be a sacrilege.

This experience contienued. After first and second cause, we were delighted by the quality, but feeled slightly dissatisfied with the amount of calories, and unable to order dessert. We asked the totally supportive waitors it would be possible to get some cheese, helping us to empty the wine before dessert. Just expressing our intention, we received a small but exciting selection of local cheese, escorted by a spoon of aromatic local honey and relish. This helped us to empty the wine and get prepared for dessert.

My girlfriend's choice was a cream of strawberry cream, my choice a classic tirami-su. Once again, a was overwhelmed by the absolute quality of the products. Mascarpone cream with 180% fresh taste, lacking all the ordinary taste of cheap almond liquor, offered the best tirami-su ever tasted.

My only mistake in this evening was the wine selection. Beeing a unconvincable fan of chianti whine, i rejected the waitors recommendation of local valpolicella whine. The wine was ok, but neither a good chianti nor a good acompany to the menue. Next time i will stick to the waitors recommendation.

To summarize: It was an exciting evening, great service, absolute exciting performance of the kitchen, very nive location, 1000% recommendation. We spend 180€ for two, which i rate as a good value for a perfect 2 course menue, a bottle of wine, water,...

I am giving this two Stars only because the food was reasonably good and well presented.

However, the service was absolutely horrendous.

We dined with another couple. They ordered their main course, asked to share it, and then ordered a first course also to be shared.

Our order was simple. We ordered the tortellini, followed by a fish main course.

Things started out well. a fresh plate of four different bread options accompanied with butter was tasty and presented well. The staff offered us a small appetizer on the house.

Then things went downhill. One of our party ordered a Sauvignon Blanc, but was presented with a Chardonnay, which, of course we sent back. The staff seemed upset that we asked for what we had ordered.

Much to our surprise, the next plates out of the kitchen, were presented to the wrong couple as ravioli. We were initially confused, but eventually realized that this was the tortellini that we had ordered, and claimed our first course.

Shortly afterwards, the main course for the couple we dined with was brought to the table. our friends were confused, and asked for their first course to be brought prior to the main course.

this request was promptly fulfilled, but no one offered to take the main course back to the kitchen to rewarm.

The couple we dined with finished both courses, and then we waited well over 45 minutes until our main course was served.

The best we can figure out from the heated discussion which followed dinner was that the waiter thought that the courses should be served in the order that they were discussed and requested, not the standard order of appetizers first, and then main course second.

I thought the waiter was quite defensive, and eventually, after much discussion, he agreed to apologize and, take some of the items off the bill.

He asked the woman with the other couple to hug him to show her affection and forgiveness. Maybe this is the custom of the country, but not one we are used to.

Food, quality and presentation was insufficient given the slow, rude, and mistake filled service.

Perhaps, if we had ordered a more expensive wine, or more food, we would not have been ignored for 45 minutes while waiting for...

Daniele is a master in using the local herbs in the dishes he prepares for the delighted customers. La carte is short with some interesting menu proposed (around 60 to 80 euro for a full proposal) meat or fish with some vegan proposal (mix of mushrooms with spring truffle). The wine carte is complete with italian proposals (recharge a bit too much but it is expected in a restaurant of this level). Other countries are a bit less represented. I appreciated the appetizer (selection of home made breads with butter aromatized with celery and lemon) and the welcome plate that exposes the mastering of Daniele in researching the merveilles of the taste and the texture of the food. On a rectangular glass plate there were four little surprises: a bignè filled with mozzarella cream with a couli of anchovies on top, a ball of cous cous with apricot and mint sauce, a rose transparent pearl made of a jelly of "sarde in saor", a small polenta with a roasted fish sauce on it. Everything was surprisingly equilibrated in the intensity of taste and well positioned in sequence with others. Daniele was always cuddling with stories about is passion and his research of new tastes with local producers (fishermen, farrmers, etc). This was evident in the fetticcine made with herbs and accompanied by a fish consommé used as sauce. We finished with some ice cream made with the marine absinthe: refreshing and leaving the final mark on a perfect dinner in front of Murano. The only little blame is about the terrace that suffers from the passage of some speedboats...