Bancogiro, San Polo, Venice. Adding a twist to stand out from the crowd

I went on a wonderful trip to Venice with my girlfriend on the first weekend of January this year, if you haven't been I cannot recommend it highly enough, although it was pretty packed with tourist even then, I can imagine it wouls only get worse in the spring and summer.

I get that if you are in the UK me talking about somewhere in Venice is not going to be very helpful in terms of you planning your next trip out, however I thought I wanted to mention this awesome little restaurant on the banks of the Grand canal, very near to the Rialto bridge called Bancogiro in spite of this, mainly because I think that good food and a great atmosphere is worth talking regardless.

The restuarant itself is an old merchant bank building set on a lively square. We had looked at quite a few menus while we were in Venice as we failed to read enough reviews of places before we went out there, and all of the places we looked at seemed to be pretty much the same, around 20 euros for a main, serving very standard Italian fare. This one caught our eye because it was a little bit different, it may have been a couple of euros more expensive (and only a couple) but some thought had been put into making the menu that little bit different, without betraying its Italian roots.

Instead of doing simple pasta for a started they served a crunchy Boer Raviloi (which was more like a pastry than a pasta), my girlfriend went for this, but I managed to steal a bite while she wasn't looking! The crunchy casing absorbed the juices of the Boer nicely. I started with a more traditional Squid Ink Taglettelle with prawns, which I have to say was amazing. I should probably at this point mention the wine, which was a Local Merlot from Venetto, I have never been a big fan of Italian Reds but this certainly went quite some way to changing my mind.

I followed this with lamb, which was stuffed with pancetta served on a mash and celeriac, as with all of the food the lamb was beautifully cooked, the flavours balanced well with each other. My other half had less of a good time with the main course, not because it was bad, but because the starter was filling. She had chosen rabbit, with eggplant and a stack of wedges, this was very rich and the lemony sauce didn't seem to break up the richness.

Despite having had a very filling starter and a main course and a half for the purposes of the review (yes, for you dear reader) I decided to sample one of the desserts which was a wonderful spicy fig and ginger mouse, served with a really lemony Muscat which complimented it really well.

Anyway, if you happen to be in Venice and want some authentic but also a little bit different i would highly recommend dropping in one night (although I would also recomend booking in advance, as it was full even on a quite Saturday in January.) http://www.osteriabancogiro.it/