Lindsey's choice

Corte della Pazienza, June 18, 2011—

WE JUST FELL INTO A PLACE for lunch today; it was too soon to step into the Accademia, we'd visited a supermarket on the Fondamente Zattere to buy some bleach — don't ask — and afterward there was a trattoria right there, the dishes were cheap, they took credit cards, so why not. We had just a plate of bresaola, parmigiano, and rucola, the Italian colors: green, white, red. With a squeeze of lemon juice. It was called the Osteria (or perhaps Trattoria, I don't remember at the moment) di Toni, but when I look this up on the Internet I get no satisfaction. Nor does the address on the receipt jibe with anything we saw today. Venice is full of mysteries. Just go to the Billa or the post office at the west end of the Fondamente Zattere, turn the corner, and fall in where an apparently Muslim man is apparently married to an apparently Asian woman, and there's a very pretty baby, and the tables are along the canal (now there's a distinguishing mark), and you'll be there. Get a glass of the house white while you're at it.

LINDSEY'S CHOICE, THOUGH, was our dinner reservation, and what some authorities apparently consider one of Venice's five best restaurants. It's over near the Museum of Natural History, on a quiet street next a quiet bridge over a quiet canal. There I began with the most interesting course of the night, three fresh raw apricot halves filled with caprino, a soft white goat cheese, liberally accompanied with mint, parsley, and radicchio. Afterward came rather an ordinary (but quite well executed) veal stew with peas, rice and salad on the side, and a side dish of spinach with raisins and pine nuts, the most Venetian thing at my place.


Dessert was a very fine panna cotta with too many sliced almonds, just the right amount of delicious honey, and drizzles of irrelevant strawberry and mango syrups. To me they were a Cognitive Dissonance, but the girls sharing my table disagree. Still, I'm the one writing here.

White wine in carafe (Trebbiano from Collio, delicious)

• La Zucca, Sestiere Santa Croce, 1762, Venezia; 041 524 1570