Il Piccolo Ristorante

Nine Tables, Venice's Most Romantic Small Restaurant.

The kitchen draws straight from the lagoon, fish landed that morning, moeche in season, local vegetables from the orti of the islands. Alongside it, dishes few tables still remember: prosciutto crudo served with baccalà, an old Venetian pairing nearly lost to time. Spices carried in by centuries of trade with the East find their way into dishes that have always been here, quietly, the way they arrived in Venice generations ago, not as a foreign addition, but as something the city simply made its own. It is a cuisine shaped by two chefs who each carry their own history to the stove, which is, in the end, exactly how Venice itself was built: one unlikely influence at a time, until the unlikely became the essence.
It is, in its own small way, the city's real character on a plate.

Plant-Based at Il Piccolo

A Vegan Menu, Venetian at Heart.

Our desserts are almost entirely plant-based. Most guests don't notice until we tell them.
It started with the lagoon, wild herbs, seasonal vegetables, produce from the orti of the islands, and grew into one of the parts of the menu we're proudest of. We are not a vegan restaurant, and never set out to be one. But plant-based cooking has become a real specialty here, from a risotto built entirely on vegetables that still carries every bit of its Venetian soul, to a pastry menu that's rare to find at this level anywhere in the city.
Come for the fish, stay for a plant-based risotto and a dessert nobody expects to be vegan.

The Two Behind the Kitchen

Ruslan Kuda grew up around fermentation and preservation, the kind of cooking built for long winters, where nothing goes to waste and everything is given time to become something else. He brought that patience with him to Il Piccolo, where it now meets Antonio's instinct for stripping a dish down to its essentials. Together they've found they share the same quiet belief: that flavor comes from trusting an ingredient, not overworking it. Antonio Lusso learned to cook in Sardinia, an island where the kitchen has always worked with very little: wild herbs foraged rather than bought, bottarga cured at home, vegetables dried in the sun to last through winter. That instinct for restraint found an unexpected match in Ruslan's slower, more patient way of working, and between them a kitchen took shape where a bao can feel Venetian and saor can sit comfortably beside raspberry.

Room Service

No One's Watching. Order the Ice Cream.

There's a particular kind of pleasure in ordering exactly what you want and having no one there to see you eat it. A silver tray arrives with a single flower, a glass of red wine, and, why not, a burger dripping down your wrist (veggie, if that's the mood). Nobody's watching. Order the ice cream, the whole bowl, no shame required. Some nights call for spaghetti alle vongole eaten in a bathrobe, or a lobster roll on the balcony at midnight, or a pizza that arrives faster than you finished undressing from the day. Room service at Il Violino d'Oro doesn't ask questions. Whatever you want, whenever you want it - that's really the whole point of staying somewhere this good.