Ostaria da Rioba — Restaurant in Venice

A perfect place that is serves near fine dining experience with a relaxed and comfortable vibe.

We made reservations and showed up 5 minutes early. The host grabbed us chairs and put them by the canal. Then provided us a drink menu and brought us drinks apologizing the table wasn't ready yet. Extremely kind hospitality. The table was ready at 9:02, yet he kept apologizing.

We were sat on canal at a cute little table. I wanted to splurge and taste everything I could. We ordered 2 appetizers, 1 1st course to share, 2 2nd courses and a few glasses of wine. They were fine splitting the one course.

Everything was well prepared with care and tasted great, the highlights were:

Appetizer: The scallops were phenomenal. Probably some of the best scallops I've had. I live in the Pacific Northwest of the US. We have amazing scallops and these were not second best to any I have had in my life. Perfectly cooked while not overcooked (often is the case).

2nd course: monkfish was suggested by the waiter and I'm glad he did. It was delightful and definitely something special. My wife had the lamb which was breaded. She found the breading detracted from the lamb, but I found it quite a nice addition. Either way, the lamb itself was great and again, cooked to perfection with obvious intention and care.

The restaurant closed as we ate and as guests left the staff would pick up the chairs and tables. I love watching well organized restaurants run. They work without it being a distraction. They broke down around us with such elegance that unless I'd been looking for it I would have never noticed.

New cutlery with every course without a beat and the right one for each dish. These littles things elevate the experience above just a nice place to eat.

Overall, the attention to detail, experience, and culinary skill is well worth the price. I've read others complaining about the amount of food for the cost. I'd suggest not eating here if you just want food. If you evaluate cuisine on the weight on the plate you probably are going to be unhappy. If you love food, attention to detail and a chef who clearly cares about what they put on a plate then this is a great place.

I will add, we left our daughter home for this dinner. She didn't find the menu interesting and I don't think she would have enjoyed the 2.5 hour dinner. So I can't recommend it for kids.

I can't wait to return and...

Quite a nice place and we went along as we were recommended it. Starter of the fish medley was really nice, but I had gnocchi for main, which was far too potatoey and spongey. The vegetables served with it were completely bland and flavourless and the shrimp were cooked until rubbery and tasteless making for a very disappointing dish, especially given the price. It is the first time I can remember not finishing a dish in a restaurant in a long long time, I am normally extremely unfussy and will eat almost anything.

Perhaps even more disappointingly, once I mentioned my lack of enjoyment of the dish (in the politest terms I could manage) the level of service nosedived from what was very good to basically being ignored. I read many reviews where I tend to think the reviewer has been precious, but for the price of the bill as a whole, I really wasn't too happy about this.

We could also overhear another diner comment to their friend that it wasn't enjoyable at all, though they didn't say anything to the staff.

My wife's dish was tasty but fairly measly for the price, she had the octopus spaghetti but only had 3 very small pieces of octopus, not as bad as mine but again a bit of a disappointment for the price.

Pudding and drinks...

Service was very slow. Took 20mins before they came to take our drinks order. They serve dry old bread with not even olive oil to help it go down. Food took 1hr 20mins to arrived (we arrived as they opened and pretty much the only people there at the time). All we ordered were 2 small pasta dishes. The food was disgusting!! 🤢 The clams in the one pasta were like those you would get from a store bought tin, and they “generously” put 6 tiny clams in there and the beans were so overcooked they became mushy as you ate. The other pasta had crab meat in it and looked like a wet dog food serve on top on pasta. It tasted vile! None of us finished our food. We also learnt that they charge you €6 for the use of table clothes and napkins - apparently this is standard practice, but seeing it on the bill, rather than working it into the price just makes for an awkward conversation with the waiter when then tell you that you need to pay for them to wash their own table cloths. Safe to say we’ll...