Osteria Anice Stellato-Venezia

We opted to stay at the outer edges of Venice at S. Alvise in Cannaregio (at the mouth of the lagoon that leads to the Grand Canal.) About 100 meters from the front door of our hotel (The Residenza Cannaregio), there is a quaint, little osteria. It looked newly remodeled with comfortable eating nooks as well as a bar area. The staff was wonderful and very accommodating, as we needed extra room for the baby's car seat.

We loved the antipasti of mixed crostini, misto di cichetti di pesce; there were 7 or 8 types of fish all done in different ways. (sweet and sour with raisins, curried with cumin seed, marinated, pureed and blended with cheese, just to name a few.)

We ordered three kinds of pasta: spaghetti with tuna and green peppercorns (this was done well but the flavor did not really knock us off our feet), spaghetti with mussels, clams and sun dried tomato (this was a great dish, the sun dried tomato added a nice bite to the pasta and the shellfish was cooked perfectly and very fresh but all in all the pasta was over salted.) Same goes with the third pasta dish, tagliolini with beans, rosemary and squid. I have never had a pasta dish with beans and seafood before. The flavor combination of the mild white beans (cooked with rosemary) and the squid were heavenly but again over salted.

The main dish we chose was the lucerna (a kind of snapper) breaded and baked in the oven accompanied by cooked radicchio, was lovely to look at and cooked perfectly but the fish itself was lacking a bit of flavor. I am not sure if this time the fish was under seasoned or just a bland tasting fish.

As a whole the place was charming and the quality of the food was top notch, maybe they were having an off night. I would have definitely given it another chance to wow me but unfortunately we left before I had the chance to eat there again. Read another review here.


Our snapper


A wonderful dessert with zabaglione and chocolate.

Osteria Anice Stellato
Fondamenta de la Sensa, Cannaregio 3272
Closed Mondays and Tuesdays
Tel: +39 041 720 744

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