Il Muro

If you found this place once then follow my advice – don’t you ever go anywhere else. Let it be the only place to have dinner and Venetian cuisine will remain with you only in pleasant memories. Actually, you are most likely not to find this restaurant. Il Muro is safely hidden from tourists eyes behind Rialto market rows and the fish market in an unnoticeable building in Bella Vienne square. There’s a bar on the first floor, and the entrance into the restaurant is everlastingly blocked up by a cheerful glasses-raising-crowd. Foreigners do not even dare to come close to it.

If you are brave enough to do that – then please be ready to get a prize on the second floor: a small hall for 20 people and a kind of cuisine agreeing with modern European standards – forget about retrograde Venice’s. Delicious meat dishes of finest veal, diversity of side dishes and intricate sauces, ingenious table appointments. The menu is different every month, but the house specialties such as beef chateaubriand are always on the menu.

Appetizer at Il Muro restaurant, Venice, Italy

It is better to read the menu in Italian (simply use a dictionary). The English translation contains piles of mistakes, sometimes even two in one word. “Lamb” is translated as “deer” and “deer”, in its turn, is written as “dear”. But these trifles only underline the restaurant’s status: it works for the locals.

At Il Muro every customer is treated to a glass of champagne with a complement (a tiny dish) on the house. With every meat or fish dish goes a free plate of salad. Water is also served for free, and there’s no extra charge for bread and cover.

Il Muro opens at 9.30 and till 11 pm you can still eat a first course (at neighbouring restaurants the kitchen closes long before). It is better that you book a table (tel: 0415237495). Hors d'oeuvres, a second course, a dessert and wine – all is about 40 Euros per person.