Osteria Bakan — Restaurant in Venice

DO NOT HO HERE -

As the finale of our trip to Venice, my family and I decided to have dinner here, after seeing good reviews on Maps. They MUST have bought the reviews somewhere, because the experience was absolutely terrible. Let me explain why.

To start off, the food is unreasonably highly priced (€20 for a cheese platter with 8 small pieces). After asking what the cheeses were, the waiter and presumably owner of the restaurant couldn’t even tell us, and said that he just bought them.

Additionally, the bread that was served with the cheeses was moldy. After we showed it to the waiter, he apologized half heartedly and said that he would get us a new basket of bread. It turns out that the new bread ALSO had mold on it. I mean come on…

We probably should have walked away right there and then, but we had already ordered our ‘primi’s’. This was the worst part. My brother had ordered a pasta with mushrooms and scallops. After having eaten half of his plate, he found a fucking worm in his food 🤮

Of course he did not finish his plate, and when the waiter was confronted again, he scooped up the worm from his plate and did not offer a replacement.

After we (regrettably) paid the bill, from which the pasta al funghi was fortunately reducted, the waiter gave the most ridiculous excuse for the worm, stating that “a bird must have dropped it from the sky”.

Seriously: do not come here, it is a...

If you’ve ever wondered why our species has taste buds, Osteria Bakan has the answer.

I ordered duck breast with orange and honey sided by onions and potatoes. I was served an encounter with the sublime.

Venice in the moonlight spirits you away. This restaurant is tucked just beyond the busy entrapments of expected Venetian tourism. Stroll the canals a brief four minutes from the main thoroughfare and slip away into an enchanting residential area.

Familiar in its stillness, don’t let the hints of domesticity here fool you. You are still in Venice, a marvel unlike any ever on Earth. Step inside to Osteria Bakan and taste the splendid.

The first bite I took of the dish, my eyes fell shut. The sterilized curtains that shade modernity peeled back and I saw Venice. The ancient center of international commerce that for centuries was the epicenter of arts, culture and the very idea of delicacy.

And I saw my place within the enchanted remains of that wonder. Arrived long after the peak of its power, but just in time to appreciate its beauty. To feel its steadfast declaration of defiance as the world warps rapidly into something unknown. No matter the unknown,...

We had a really unpleasant and outright racist encounter at this Osteria today. Our family with a 10 year old child entered the restaurant at lunch and asked for a table; we were told rudely to wait for 10-15 minutes. We did this even though there were multiple empty tables in the room and outside. When we inquired again (after 10 minutes) as to when we might be seated, the waiter snarled at us and continued to ignore us. Finally, when we asked again after a prolonged wait as to when we might be seated, the waiter and the man behind the bar erupted at us in a vicious tone, gesticulating wildly, and told us to "get out", that they didn't want "people like us". Well, I'm a professor, and I'm brown. Somehow I think that they weren't referring to my profession, but my skin color when they referred to "people like us". Everything about their hate filled body language told me so. The incident has left us shaken. We've been fortunate enough to never encounter such behavior before in Italy. Go to this place at your own peril. They have NOTHING that they can use to justify their behavior except for their sheer unadulterated racism. We were...