Antica Osteria Ruga Rialto — Restaurant in Venice

I looked around for places with good recommendations and saw this restaurant/bar recommended a couple of times. Checking the menu on Google, the prices also looked reasonable, so I decided to go with it as my choice for trying Venetian cooking.

Unfortunately, when I got there, it looked as if the menu pricing was out of date because everything was at least a couple of euros more per dish. I was tired of walking though, so I took a table and ordered a dish that I had been interested in trying-- the biggoli in salsa.

This is a fairly simple dish of pasta (biggoli, or oversized spaghetti) in a sauce of onions, sardines, and anchovies. It didn't take too long to come out, along with a plate of toasted bread, and I dug in. Overall, I enjoyed the dish, but it wasn't quite what I was expecting. I thought it would be made with canned (and thus salty) fish, but the sauce was actually closer to sweet than anything and generally pretty mild. I wasn't really able to detect the anchovies or sardines at all, other than perhaps by the umami as they are dissolved into the sauce.

It wasn't a particularly small portion (for most), but combined with an unexpected table charge (which is apparently standard if you don't eat at a bar standing in Venice), it came out to 16.50 euros and honestly, I can't say that it was worth that to me. Though, if you want anything substantial for a meal, it is hard to find anything much cheaper in Venice.

Value and the fact that I wasn't warned about the cost of sitting were the primary detractors here. The staff were polite and quick, though they seemed surprised that I only wanted the one dish. Overall, with the food, it balanced out to an average experience for me-- for someone less price conscious, it is probably worth...

if i could i would give 0, rude service, when the waiter heard that we are from Poland, he immediately changed his attitude, he treated us very badly, we booked a table for 10 people earlier, when we wanted to order a meal, the waiter said that he could offer us one big meal so that everyone would eat the same because there are a lot of us, I've never encountered such behavior, we protested, after that he only agreed that half of us would choose the same from the menu, the food was unacceptable, there was almost no meat in the bolognese, literally just pasta, seafod was cole and unfit to eat, we were very disappointed, after pointing out the waiter's attention, he called the cook who started shouting at us and behaving in a very uncultured way in front of people in restaurant, when we realized that it was impossible to get along with him, we stopped discussing, in any other restaurant in Italy and anywhere else I haven't encountered such outrageous attitude, please...

Restaurant experience was one of the worst. Service was quick and accommodating with water, bread, and seating, but there was a catch. The pasta bolognese tasted like nothing. The pasta bolognese was undercooked and flavorless. Microwaveable dinner can taste better. They gave us packets of Parmesan cheese labeled with the PDO seal, which is supposed to guarantee freshness and quality, which it was not. We enjoyed the patatine fritte which was surprisingly good, one of the best sides I’ve tasted in Italy honestly. We were then asked by one of the waitresses, (Ursula?) if we enjoyed our meal, and after we expressed our dissatisfaction she asked us if we were cooks. We are in fact not, but as customers we were simply baffled by such low quality. Cooking a better meal would not be hard. Perhaps they serve tourists differently, but all the waiters and waitresses were friendly. I cannot recommend...