{"id":17,"date":"2005-04-28T09:36:00","date_gmt":"2005-04-28T09:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gastromondiale.com\/2016-10-15-osteria-alle-testiere\/"},"modified":"2024-03-03T13:52:32","modified_gmt":"2024-03-03T13:52:32","slug":"2016-10-15-osteria-alle-testiere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gastromondiale.com\/2016-10-15-osteria-alle-testiere\/","title":{"rendered":"Osteria alle Testiere"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
The seafood of Venice and the Adriatic coast to the south is one of the very best and unique in the world. However, it is not always easy to find authentic restaurants which make the best use of fresh and local ingredients. One restaurant that had been recommended by some frequent visitors of Venice with discriminating palates is Osteria alle Testiere<\/strong>. This place was on my radar screen for a long time, but we have never had a chance to get to Venice. Finally the opportunity came up when we were spending three days in the beautiful Venetian town of Verona, where one of my favorite contemporary writers, Tim Parks<\/strong> lives. I recommend very highly his non-fiction \u201cItalian<\/em> Neighbours<\/em>\u201d for those interested in Italian culture. We drove to Venice from Verona, parked the car around Piazzola Roma and then happily walked to the restaurant as the public boats or vaporettos were on strike. Alle Testiere<\/strong> is a small trattoria<\/em> with only 6 to 7 tables. The room is charming in a natural way without any artificial attempt to make it look \u201ccozy\u201d for the outsiders. These tables fill quickly and one needs reservation even for lunch. Dinner reservations are very hard to get, so the restaurant does have multiple seatings for dinner during the high season. We were seated by a young waitress in a nice corner table and then a friendly (but without artificial excess) person came to take our order after reciting the daily specials. His name was Mr. Luca. It turned out that he is the co-owner (the other owner is Bruno, the chef) and also the wine buyer. Luca speaks both English and French fluently, which made our communication easier. A few months later, in a more recent visit, we would learn that Luca is a consummate professional and he discovered Bruno\u2019s cooking as a client. When the two joined hands, they turned a cute neighborhood trattoria into arguably one of the two best restaurants in Venice (the other being Da Fiore<\/strong>) and into one of the very best Italian seafood places. Although there is a written menu posted outside, Alle Testiere<\/strong> buys its seafood daily from the open-air fish market near the Rialto Bridge<\/strong>. Therefore, the menu changes daily depending on the availability of fresh and seasonal products. When Luca recited the six daily antipastas<\/em>, or entrees, it turned out that they are all favorites of mine and some of them can only be had in the Adriatic. We ended up choosing five out of six beauties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We started with the baby soft shell crabs (moeche<\/em>), served at room temperature. Indescribably juicy and subtly seasoned, they were by far the best soft shell crabs I have had. Bruno rolls them in breadcrumbs and quickly fries them. He then marinates them in a zesty blend of olive oil, fresh pink grapefruit juice, orange juice and sea salt. Before serving them with a side salad of agrumes<\/em>, the crabs are slightly rubbed with cumin. The result is so appetizing and tastebud tickling that in our most recent visit in end March we were elated to find them among the daily specials again, and we ordered a double portion!<\/p>\n\n\n\n