la restera del sile

Tasty local food.

I only came here for lunch, and the countryside setting by the Sile and Restera rivers is lovely. The place is small but welcoming and well kept, including outside, with plenty of parking. You should reserve, and if you’re bringing a dog, let them know ahead of time; dogs are welcome on a leash. It’s tucked away, so GPS is useful if you don’t know the area. There’s a varied set menu. Ours included house-made mixed cold cuts, fried zucchini flowers in batter, snails with polenta, lasagna, mallard with polenta and pevarada, plus water, white wine, coffee, and dessert. The coffee was made with a moka pot, and the dessert came from a nearby pastry shop. It came to €41.00. Everything was very good, though the zucchini flower batter, while delicious, was quite oily. There’s also a big garden outside.

We had lunch on Saturday and ate really well. The portions were generous, everything was served with care, and it was all delicious. Monica was kind and helpful, and the decor feels very welcoming. It was lovely to have the choice of sitting outside under the trees.

The garden was what upset us most. The owner acted concerned about “electricity wires” hanging from the tree behind where I was standing, and called out loudly for us not to “pull the wires” while we were happily playing with a three-year-old who never went near it. With all the rusty junk lying around, she might as well cordon the garden off with red and white tape to guarantee customer safety. The waiter was grumpy, but that wasn’t the main thing that saddened us. The pricing was. As I said both on WhatsApp, since you don’t answer the phone, and at the table, it’s deeply wrong not to tell people when booking that you’re charging €40 for a “fixed menu.” Last week it was €38, but apparently the Strait of Hormuz is closed and oil prices are high, so a business so tied to global geopolitics feels the consequences IMMEDIATELY. And “fixed menu” is in quotes because it was really an à la carte menu where customers had to pick three dishes. I’d understand the term if the courses were actually fixed with no choices, but there were two first courses and three second courses to choose from. At a farmhouse, wine and dessert weren’t included either: there was Margherita cake at €4 each and a carafe of Glera for €12. That pushed the bill to €50 per person, at a farmhouse!!!!! I’d avoided writing a review because I didn’t want to be pedantic, but here we are.