In Venice, on Fondamenta dei Tolentini, Zanze XVI is a restaurant with a soul dedicated to haute cuisine and the heart of a traditional osteria with a young team, led by chef Giovanni Rigoni, who offers an instinctive and unconventional cuisine.
An exceptional couple brought a new food concept to the Venetian gastronomic scene in a historic establishment: Nicola Dinato, chef and deus ex machina of the Ristorante Feva in Castelfranco Veneto, and Nicola Possagnolo, an enlightened entrepreneur who has combined food and digital innovation, who entrusted the kitchen to Giovanni Rigoni.
A location that boasts a long history: Zanze XVI was born, in fact, as an inn in the 16th century, hence the name, and in the 1990s it became known as Trattoria dalla Zanze, according to popular history the famous cook who used to serve food here for the nearby public prison.
We carefully select raw materials from the best Venetian markets and producers of the Lagoon. Each dish of our cuisine is born from an original combination of memories, flavors and emotions.
The turning point came in 2017 when Dinato and Possagnolo decided to reopen it after an elegant restoration coordinated by the architect Nico Galati in collaboration with the interior designer Davide Fracasso.
The renovated tavern is a hymn to local tradition with marble floors and wooden ceilings, walls decorated with Venetian marmorino in an elegant gray contrasting with the exposed bricks that reveal traces of the past such as the perimeter of the old fireplace. On the walls and shelves are the beautiful works and illustrations of Luigi Divari, an artist with a great passion for the sea who also illustrated the menu of Zanze XVI.
Many details create, already at sight, suggestions that make us “taste” the history of Venice: from the tables made with old bricole (the wooden poles on which the city was built) to the Murano glass cutlery holders.
In the kitchen Giovanni Rigoni, with various prestigious experiences under his belt, between France, Milan and Padua, including Le Calandre of the Alajmo family, where he worked for 7 years, and at Feva in Castelfranco Veneto as a sous chef. Now he coordinates a team of young people under 30 who give life to a cuisine that lives in symbiosis with the city, in harmony with nature and respectful of the rhythm of life of the seas.
Two tasting menus are offered. Anima is a seven-course blind tasting, a journey of flavors that starts in Venice and accompanies the guest along the Silk Road and the routes of Venetian merchants; while Taste of Venice is the seasonal five-course menu dedicated to the products of the land, sea and lagoon of Veneto.
Among the proposals of the summer menu: Rice with seafood, Linguine, onions, tuna sauce and bottarga, Cuttlefish stuffed with aubergines, mushrooms, cream of pine nuts and lagoon herbs, Pinsa and ice cream. Both tasting menus are accompanied by a selection of artisanal breads and leavened products processed and prepared internally in the small laboratory of the restaurant.
Thee maître Irene Dorai, with skill and elegance, will lead you to discover, dish after dish, from the amuse bouche to the small pastries, a good, creative and instinctive cuisine that will accompany you on an unprecedented and surprising journey.
Zanze XVI is a truly unique place on the Venetian culinary scene, which offers the magic of eating with a view of the Rio de la Cazziola and Ca’ Rizzi, conveniently a stone’s throw from the Santa Lucia station.
The Secret
To underline the union between past and innovation, the Superleggere chairs by Gio Ponti inspired by the traditional “Chiavari” seats typical of old Italian taverns and the wall panels that pay homage to traditional boiseries.
Info utili
Zanze XVI
Santa Croce 231
30135 Venezia
Tel. +39 041 715394
Tasting menu: from 110 euro per person, wine pairing from 75 euro
A la carte choice: 40 euro per dish, desserts 15 euro