CORTE SCONTA

From a story by Marco Proietto

The restaurant, founded on the 1st of March 1980, was established by two friends, Claudio Proietto and Gianpiero Tegon. They were dissatisfied with their respective jobs – Claudio worked for the Venice City Council, while Gianpiero worked as the head porter at the Savoia Jolanda Hotel. They decided to open Corte Sconta (a tribute to Corto Maltese) together with their wives, Rita and Lena.

Venice in the 1980s was a very different place from what we experience today, more residential, popular, and neighbourhood-oriented. Therefore, initially, Corte Sconta was a simple tavern – a place where people came to play cards and have a few drinks with some cicchetti.

Then, in the 1990s, real tourism began to arrive in Venice, with significant numbers. These were the years when Gianpiero, the partner, left the restaurant, and instead, Aunt Lucia (Zambon) joined the team. Lucia had been working at the Gritti Hotel Reception and decided to take the reins of the restaurant and start expanding the wine list. These were also the years of the first Vinitaly, Gambero Rosso guides – a circle of people who were becoming very attentive to food and wine was beginning to develop. Corte Sconta wanted to keep up with the times. Over time, the restaurant evolved further, starting to offer appetizers, first courses, and second courses. We tried to make everything ourselves, including homemade pasta. In 2002, Eugenio Oro, our first real chef, arrived and began making desserts and sourdough bread in-house. The years passed, Venice changed, my mother and my Aunt Lucia began to feel a bit tired. In the meantime, I was abroad. In 2019, they called me, saying that the restaurant needed help. I decided to return and take over the company.

I had never managed a restaurant before then; at Corte Sconta, I had worked as a waiter when I was a boy. Plus, between high water and the pandemic, it was not an easy time. But I can say that what I wanted to do – create a more contemporary and renewed situation – has been achieved.

Today, we mainly work with fish, especially shellfish and crustaceans, trying to source only what’s caught. We have two suppliers, one at the Chioggia market and one at the Rialto market. We aim to work with fresh and high-quality ingredients, whole fish like swordfish and tuna, which we source from Sicily and Croatia. We avoid overexploited and depleted products.

We want to convey to our customers the history and tradition of Venice through our recipes, trying to involve them in the city’s issues, as well as the origin of the raw materials and all related topics – from the disappearing lagoon mudflats to the tropicalization of certain nearby areas. We want to convey the message of quality, selection, and that a limited offering is not a negative note, or that higher prices than fast food do not mean it’s a rip-off.

And I see Buona Accoglienza as a place of unity and collaboration between restaurateurs and customers, creating a common vision for Venice’s future. A place where important political, environmental, and social issues are discussed. An association that promotes culture and education – a small bulwark of a great revolution that intercepts a common sensitivity not only among restaurateurs like us but also among the city and, by extension, the world that truly loves and appreciates it.