Ristorante Wistèria — Restaurant in Venice

Wisteria was the biggest mistake of my visit to Venice - and probably the worst place I've ever eaten considering it was costly and bad.

My husband and I made the mistake of selecting the 8-course menu without knowing the kitchen well beforehand since Michelin hasn't really steered us wrong before. Unfortunately, plates at their best were mediocre and at their worst were textural nightmares.

We probably should have known what was to come when entry to the restaurant was so hands-off. We actually idled in their transition space with a few other strangers because we were unsure if we were in the right entrance. From my other exp elsewhere, I would expect staff to take action and steer us where needed, esp when more than one person made eye contact with us. But nope, we had to just find our way to their hosting table ourselves. As an aside, another observation while we were eating that surprised me was that staff were not folding napkins after ppl left their tables. I understand this isn't a rule, but I can't say I've ever dined formally and seen it missed before.

Once seated + orders in, my husband was given an obscenely dusty wine glass. I thought it was a trick of the light until the sommelier poured his wine + my husband/I both got to enjoy the halo of flecks and hair that floated on top after settling in. I wanted to tell someone, but my husband already drank some + just wanted to let bygones be. I need to note that he had to regularly swirl his wine to mix the countless bits in that kept rising up to stare at us. 👁️👄👁️

The cuttlefish dish with the multiple preparations was something we struggled with. 😑 The main plate took serious muscle to cut through, it was like leather. The other preps were varieties of gooey, mushy, and unappetizing. The dessert with the raw shrimp was likewise unappealingly gooey, requiring gulps of water to get down. The red lentil macaroni + the pasta in the cuttlefish dish were both surprisingly gummy in texture. The hard and soft lasagna wasn't that way... But I'm pretty sure the "hard" pasta in that plate was a cracker based on taste + texture. 🤦‍♀️ The "smoked" baby goat (they just introduced smoke after the cook, from the taste of it) was served with tater tots + tarter sauce. Why? For who? Nothing with this plate made any sense to me. 🤷‍♀️🤦‍♀️ All in all, the kitchen's judgment of textures that they can serve to the public clashed with what I find acceptable. 🙅‍♀️

In terms of service, the staff came around very frequently. If you ask, "if it was so bad, why didn't you say something?"... We didn't have any plates that were outright gross until halfway through. How do you bring that up to staff? In all honesty, I felt like I was losing my mind that staff thought it was okay to serve what they were serving and that everyone was sitting eating the food like nothing was wrong with it. 💀 I'll take responsibility for not saying anything, but stuff went south so badly, we were both struggling to cope just with how much money we spent on bad memories. 💸💔💸

I'm not sure if my husband and I were the odd ones out because a lot of ppl around us seemed to be enjoying themselves. Maybe we were just taking crazy pills. Who knows? I personally cannot recommend this restaurant...

It took me a few days to decide to post this review, because I left the restaurant deeply unsatisfied and I wanted to think about my experience. But time made only things worse.

First let's start with the food: we took the 8 course tasting menu with the basic wine pairing. Out of the 8 dishes, I liked probably one and another that was given to us because they were clearly having problems in the kitchen and the wait between two courses was getting extremely long. I didn't particularly liked the food because every dish was really "in your face" and very unbalanced. The caviar was immersed in a oolong tea gelatin and you could only taste the gelatin, one dish (the carrot pasta) had so much salt that it left a burning feeling in your mouth. I can go on, but the suggestion is that, if you like subtler flavors, this is not the place for you.

Next chapter is the wine pairing. The so-called sommelier could only read the wine labels without adding anything. He even said the "Barbera di D'Asti", like D'Asti was the name of the city. The quality of the wine was mediocre at best and some choices were plainly wrong. The full-bodied Barbera was only 3 years old; they had some Lambrusco rosè which is something that didn't belong even in the average countryside bar. Poor and cheap choices. My suggestion is that you take a nice bottle and enjoy that.

Then there is the service. It was informal and I liked it. The waiters were funny. With that said, they were totally clueless about what they were doing, they just went back and forth in the room, talking among themselves and providing little in terms of the content of the dishes we were being served. I dared to ask a tongue-in-cheek question about a dish called "5 shade of squid", because I could only count 4 variations; they weren't able to tell me which was the 5th shade. In addition to that everything was very slow: it took us almost 4 hours to get through the whole dinner.

The there is the restaurant itself. We all love Venice and we understand that space is a scarce commodity, therefore you have to expect some coziness. I didn't mind slaloming through the waiters to get to the bathroom, but the bathroom itself belonged to the average "osteria" more than a one-star Michelin restaurant. The tables were incredibly small the waiters had to move everything to make some room for one of the dishes.

Last but not least they got our bill wrong because they charge 2 wine pairings instead of 1.

After spending close to 500€, I have to say that I was very...

What was supposed to be a highlight of our honey moon was instead a terrible experience.

My wife is pregnant, so I called ahead to tell the restaurant about her dietary restrictions. We reminded them again when we entered the restaurant. Yet, they completely ignored us when we said no raw fish or dairy products, and served her caviar, yogurt, and undercooked fish. When we mentioned our concerns to the waiter, he argued with us, saying that some women eat these things and so our requests were “not a rule” in his opinion. With the exception of one waiter, they were all extremely rude to her and made us both feel uncomfortable. When my wife tried to go to the bathroom before the first course, a busboy told her she shouldn’t because a surprise appetizer was ready. They acted as if she were ruining their perfectly orchestrated timing. Complete nonsense as we didn’t even know a surprise course was coming. I took a wine paring (75€) that was, first of all, very mediocre quality. Also, alternating white, red, and sweet wines randomly. After the sweet wine with the second course, I told the “sommelier” that I don’t like sweet wines and requested he substitute those with something else. Like a sick joke, the “sommelier” then came to the table announcing the sweet wine that goes with the dessert and said if he doesn’t like it, they would give him the same red wine from the previous course, which was not good.

For a meal that cost €400, this was one of the worst culinary experiences of our lives, not to mention on our honeymoon in Italy.Do not go here if you are pregnant or have any dietary restrictions. They could...