Trattoria Antiche Carampane — Restaurant in Venice

I would rate the food at this restaurant a 3, but for the price they command I had to knock it down a star. The only words I can use to describe this place was disappointing and unmemorable. There was really no superb dish that stood out and I left feeling completely let down giving all the reviews and hype about this restaurant. The only real positive note I have is that they did recommend a great wine.

My girlfriend and I started out with their scallop/truffle dish. While the dish tasted good, the truffles were a complete bust. I put an entire shaving of it in my mouth and it tasted like lettuce, there was absolutely no truffle essence whatsoever. My girlfriend is a truffle fiend and we've had them all over the world, so when I mentioned something to them about this, someone just came out and wanted to argue with me that they were "not white truffles but summer truffles instead." Clearly he was more interested in being right than realizing that his truffles are absolute garbage, or perhaps he just doesn't taste his ingredients before he serves them.

Next we had the clam/pesto pasta and the spider crab pasta. Neither or which were particularly great, perhaps mediocre is the proper word to use. I also picked out quite a bit of shell pieces from the spider crab dish. If I had paid 18 euros to eat these plates by the Grand Canal or something I probably would have been okay with the dish and the price, but for a restaurant supposedly of this caliber it was a total letdown.

By the time we were to our last plates we were ready to leave. We had the shrimp/calamari plate and the cuttlefish/polenta dish. The cuttlefish was pretty good. The shrimp and calamari were fresh but many of the bites we had were over-salted which made it difficult to eat. In the end we took our leftovers to go and gave them away to the less fortunate on the walk home.

For the amount of money you are paying at this restaurant I would expect much more from this place and we left completely disappointed. If you are looking for a nice meal in Venice, I would suggest looking elsewhere. I would also suggest to them that rather than try to be argue that they are right, perhaps they taste their own ingredients before coming out to talk with the customer. If they just removed the "truffles" from the scallop dish, it would be a great dish. There's no need to put subpar ingredients...

I made a reservation on January 24th, 2017 for dinner on March 3, 2017, which was confirmed. I specifically remember the details of the reservation as 1) the restaurant was closed for vacation through Jan 23, so I waited until the 24th and 2) I asked for an 8pm reservation and was told the first seating starts at 7:30.

So I had a 7:30 reservation for March 3.

When my husband and I arrived at 7:25, we were told we did not have a reservation. We explained that we did and asked if it was possible someone at the restaurant made a mistake. The manager became irate and started screaming that anytime someone makes a reservation, it's immediately written in the book and if someone made a mistake, it was us. He just kept screaming at us, so loudly that patrons that were already seated started to stare at us.

We confirmed this reservation through our hotel, so we called the hotel to see if they could help. The hotel called the restaurant and reiterated that they had notes in their system about the reservation. The manager of the restaurant hung up on the hotel and continued screaming at us, saying that it's not his problem and if we wanted to stay there and wait until 9:30pm, he would try to get us a table during the second seating.

We explained that we could not wait (my husband had a conference call at 9pm) and again asked him to find a way to seat us for our reservation. We explained that we were looking forward to eating at this restaurant because we read it was favored by locals and had great food. He responded that there are plenty of restaurants to choose from, that his was not one of the best in Venice, and that we should leave.

So we left and found a table elsewhere and had a great meal.

I would not recommend you spend any of your money in a place that shows such disregard and contempt for its customers. There was no reason for the manager to become so irate or rude to the point of being intimidating. We have eaten at some of the best restaurants in the world and I've never experienced...

I was in Italy on business and flew my wife out from New York for a romantic weekend in Venice. We went the first weekend in March. My wife had made a reservation in late January. for dinner on March 3, 2017, which was confirmed. The reservation details were quite specific as they had pushed us up earlier from what we requested because of their seating times.

Our hotel is closer to the train station and we traipsed through the rain for 40 minutes to get here. Once we arrived, we were told by the man at the desk with the reservation book that we did not have a reservation. We clearly explained we made a reservation and recounted the details. The man grew beligerent and kept pointing to the book that it wasn't written down so we don't have one. Finally I had to ask him if he was perfect and never made a mistake and he said of course he wasn't perfect and could have made a mistake but there was nothing he could do to seat us as people kept strolling in after us to be seated. He told us to come back tomorrow. I told him we had other reservations (where we left a deposit) and could not. After insisting we come back tomorrow, I told him that wasn't a workable solution and he continued to get louder and was screaming at this point. I politely informed him that this was unacceptable and I would leave a review reflecting this. He told me it wasn't fair since he was giving us solutions (come back another time when we couldn't).

We finally had to call our hotel who squeezed us into the last table of a lovely establishment across town that prioritized our food since I had a business call that evening. Another 40 minute walk back.

I am not sure how the food is here but I will tell you the staff is rude and belligerent. I recommend you spend your money at...