The magic of the Club Del Doge dining room grabs hold of you, it still feels festive at the beginning of January. Venetian in its fullest form, this is what you come to Venice for in my opinion. And if you can have a satisfying meal in a room like this too, it makes for a night that ticks a lot of boxes. The food here is simple but good, nothing complicated, classic, not fussy.
When the classics are done well, there isn’t really anything to complain about. We had a fantastic piece of chateaubriand, carved, and prepared in front us at the table. The meat was excellent, no chewiness and the flavour, good. This was served with some grilled vegetables, truffle pomme puree, jus, béarnaise sauce and of course not forgetting the chips. Everything was executed just as we were expecting.
The jus had body and depth, the béarnaise had the perfect balance of acidity to clarified butter (etc), the chips were superbly crisp and the pomme puree being perfectly smooth with a favourable amount of truffle coming through. All of it was simply delicious.
I decided to go for their soufflé for dessert and the pastry chef kindly made one to order for me even though it was getting late. It seemed very Italian as opposed to the French way, but it was good, nevertheless. I polished the whole thing off going back and forth between the ice cream and the chocolate sauce. It was just pure satisfaction. I had no space left for the petit fours at the end!
Often in Venice the food can be mediocre in many places, as it tends to rely a lot on its looks… Here I was happy as we were sat in one of the best venetian dining rooms overlooking the canal, surrounded by opulence and grandeur but also enjoying very decent cookery. This shouldn’t be hard to do, we all expect that when you go out to a restaurant, the food must match the surroundings, but when you are in a very touristy city such as this, who knows what you are going to get. This place was a safe house from all things bad out there.
