ALLE TESTIERE

From a story by Luca Di Vita

Let’s start with the end: this year (2023), we celebrate thirty years of activity.

Bruno (Gavagnin, ed.) has always been a cook. He followed his mother, who was a home cook, so he grew up with cooking. He attended a hotel school and started working in various restaurants in Venice – a crazy apprenticeship. Then he decided to work on his own and found this place in 1993.

I had been friends with Bruno for many years; we had many mutual friends and shared a passion for eating and drinking well. At the time, I was working in a hotel (I worked there for more than 15 years), but my passion for wine led me to become a sommelier, and in the meantime, I traveled the world because I was curious to try different things. However, one day I found him outside on the street, and he asked me if I wanted to take over from his partner, who was leaving. I hesitated for a moment, but in the end, I decided to do it. I immediately liked the concept; it just lacked the wine and hospitality aspect, which was more my field. We started in 1994.

There has always been an ideal synergy between us. We liked good, fresh things. Those were the years when all those prepared products didn’t exist; you went to the market, bought things, and cooked them. Here, we still work like that – only with fresh ingredients, with the catch of the day. We create the menu every day based on what’s available. We have an efficient reservation system, so we optimize space to the maximum and know exactly how much we need. We have 11 tables, serve one lunch shift, and two dinner shifts, about 60 covers. We know exactly how much food we need. Out of all the space we have for food, the fish fills a refrigerator. We fill it and empty it, fill it, and empty it. No freezer. And we try to work with fish from the Adriatic, at most from the Tyrrhenian Sea. We have trusted suppliers at the Rialto market, and we buy only what we like, every day.

The work is very raw and honest. The dishes change constantly, but there are also signature dishes that undergo only small seasonal variations. There are always three first courses for space reasons; when we can, we make homemade pasta. Instead of appetizers, since they are the key to true Venetian tradition for me, there are always many. And our regular customers, the most loyal ones, only eat a selection of appetizers. We have fun. Anna makes the desserts in-house, as well as the ice creams, a few each day, the ones we need, always fresh.

I’ve never had a wine list because mine is not a wine list. Mine is a roster of friends; you open it and there’s Lorenzo, there’s Ivan, there’s Damiani, there’s Enzo. They come first, then their wines. They are friends I respect, and they respect us. There’s that relationship of exchange and trust. Also, I’m not a natural wine zealot, but I prefer working with small producers. I like to say, more than natural wine, it’s conscious wine.

The heart of our work remains this idea of being inspired by the market. We have remained a trattoria. I am against the gourmetization of Italian cuisine. All our dishes are still trattoria dishes. We are in Venice, fortunate to buy fresh, live fish: to then reduce it to a dish that could be made anywhere seems absurd to me. Nevertheless, our dishes are adorned, meaning in the kitchen, you have to leave some room for expression – personally, I would opt for subtraction. They do this work for many hours a day; it’s natural that they want to express themselves a bit. This is the maximum we have allowed ourselves.

With this perspective, over the years, we have done many things: our lagoon amaro (Nostrano), our wine (from a tiny vineyard in Combai, only in magnum bottles (50 per year)), a recipe book with beautiful illustrations that identify us a lot (one of which has become our logo).

We have been fortunate to have a great media presence, especially in the Anglo-Saxon press and on the BBC, and this has given us a lot, and it has also given us the opportunity to talk about the challenges in this sector. I had the opportunity to work in the hotel industry at a time when there was great professionalism, passionate figures, attentive service. Now, it often happens that a product is given instead of service. I am a bit old-fashioned, and I like to provide a high-level service. We have five people in the dining room for eleven tables. I like to have the opportunity to talk with a customer for even an hour and see the service move forward. The perspective has changed, the customer’s expectations, the cost of personnel, of course, it’s not easy. But we try.

In the Buona Accoglienza, we have been part of it for more than twenty years; we are among the old guard, so to speak. And seeing this new influx of young people is nice and could be decisive in terms of ideas and action. We have done a lot, and now it’s very tiring, and we are a bit tired. I think it’s important to structure and seek new energies to lighten everyone’s load. This is a group that derives its strength from the unity of the message concerning quality but is also strong in its diversity.