Now here, I'm afraid, is a classic example of style over substance. It's very nice to sit in a first floor brick vaulted dining room near the Rialto market, a babble of tourists drinking and taking cichetti below, the Christmas lights of the souvenir stalls twinkling across the campo. It's nice to gaze on a square white plate of salmon and fennel and pear, or a salad of duck ham, blue cheese and grapes. How about smoked tuna with aubergine and a pumpkin and cardamom sauce, or lamb with tarragon? They read well on the menu, they look good on the plate...if only they tasted of something!
I'm not trying to be unkind or harsh, really I'm not. There are lots of people on Tripadvisor who would say I'm an idiot, that the food here is the best they've ever tasted. (And four who would say I'm being too kind). So I'm prepared to think that we just came on a bad day. Maybe the chef had a cold and had lost his sense of taste. Maybe he had had his tongue cut out with a stiletto in a feud with with a gondolier over a beautiful woman. Well, you never know in Venice.
For whatever reason, he clearly wasn't tasting his food that day, and we paid over 100 euros for two plates each of mediocre dishes, eaten in beautiful but empty dining room. The wine was good though. Listen, don't let me put you off. Dozens of Tripadvisors can't be wrong (surely?), and I can be, easily, and often. But really, everything here was in very good taste; except the food.
Osteria Bancogiro, Campo San Giacometto, San Polo 122, under the porticoes, Venice, 30125
- Tel 041 5232061
- Osteria Bancogiro
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