A visit to Venice is always a very special experience. Some call it a true fairy tale and most consider it to be a truly mesmerizing experience. In this unique city, Chef Riccardo Canella created a similarly unique restaurant. The Italian chef – who is known for the fact that he was the right hand man of René Redzepi at Noma for many years – created a wonderful restaurant where the best products from the region shine in dishes which are presented in a stunning way and, above all, taste even better.

Concept & Location

Oro Restaurant is located inside Hotel Cipriani, a Belmond Hotel, which you can find on Giudecca Island. This is only a boat ride of five minutes away from St. Mark’s Square. Thus, the hotel is very close to all the tourist hot spots of the city, while you have the advantage of spending time in totally calm, intimate and serene environment. Once you walk into the hotel, bypass the reception desk and go to the left, you are walking through a corridor filled with pictures of famous Hollywood celebrities which once called Hotel Cipriani, a Belmond Hotel, their home away from home. All the way at the back of the corridor, you will find Oro Restaurant. First thing that you will notice is the amazing views through the windows of the restaurant and the opulent interior design. But very fast, this will lose your attention as you will be drawn into the plates with the marvelous dishes chef Riccardo Canella is serving to his guests. Each creation that comes out of his kitchen is a true piece of art, in which the very best products of the region play the main character role.

The Chef & the team

The culinary mastermind behind Oro Restaurant is Chef Riccardo Canella. Asked for the reasons why he decided to become a chef, he will always answer that he did not choose for cooking as a job but that cooking choose him. Already at the age of six, he woke up before everyone else in the family to prepare breakfast. He was obsessed about the way the cookies were displayed on the tray, or the coffee cups were arranged on the table. It seems that striving for culinary perfection was already in his genes back then. The chef believes it all goes back to his birth. He was born in Padua at seven months and had to be kept two months in an incubator. During that time he was fed through a needle. Food was needed for his survival and to keep him alive. He considers feeding people as an act of love. He is convinced that at that moment, his love for food was initiated.

Riccardo decided to go to culinary school in Padua at the age of thirteen even tough at that moment he was not yet completely sure that becoming a chef was his true destiny. He also was disappointed in the internships that he did during his time at culinary school. The restaurants he worked in at that time, were using a lot of frozen products. This approach was not in line with the kind of chef he wanted to become. Everything changed when at the age of twenty he got in touch with the famous Italian chef  Marchesi. Riccardo became a commis in his team and would stay there for one and a half years. He learned how to behave in a professional kitchen, how to organize things and especially the importance of using great products. Still today, he believes that Marchesi turned him into the chef he is now.

Later in his career, he joined famous restaurant Noma in 2014 at the age of 29. It started as an internship. Riccardo could not speak English very well so it was not easy at first. Long before he took this step, Riccardo fell in love with the first book that René Redzepi created. Both gentlemen met each other in Milan and Riccardo asked Redzepi for a job. He was requested to send a mail to the restaurant and almost immediately he got the internship. Only nine months later, he was already the sous-chef of Noma. Canella would stay for seven years in this role. A period in which he learned a lot. After being the sous-chef for so long, he stepped out of the daily operations and moved to the creative side in the test kitchen. He is convinced that there he really discovered his true talent, which is the ability to create. René also gave him the opportunity to fully develop those skills. Looking back, Riccardo went to Noma to learn a new language, but at a certain point he discovered that he wanted to create his own language. He felt the need to express himself and to not cook dishes on behalf of another chef. The ideal opportunity for that came, when he was called by the General Manager of Hotel Cipriani, a Belmond Hotel. He was asked to fly in for a trial and to cook eight dishes with ingredients he found in the hotel at that moment. The dishes were totally improvised and not based on what he was doing till then in Noma. But they convinced the team  and that is how he became chef of Oro Restaurant.

Riccardo oversees the entire culinary operations of Hotel Cipriani, a Belmond Hotel in Venice. The team which strictly works for Oro Restaurant consists only out of 3 people and the chef himself. The plan is to further grow that to a complete team of seven people. The advantage is that the departments who are taking care of the cooking for the other parts of the hotel, are working in the same kitchen. In the end it is one big team. Oro Restaurant is serving guests only during dinner and caters for about twenty people per service.

Gastronomy

Chef Riccardo Canella loves to create tension between ingredients he is combining in his dishes. Every plate that leaves the kitchen is a translation of how he sees the food of Venice. The chef wants to make sure that with every bite, his guests are aware that they are in this unique environment. One of the main reasons the chef came back to Italy after his travels abroad, is the enormous luxury he considers the possibility to cook with Italian products. The country is very stretched and as such is the range of the products very diverse. He considers these products as the fundaments of his cooking style. However, even more important are ideas and creativity. Strong ideas and lots of creativity lead to unique dishes. Riccardo is convinced that with normal products you can make a wonderful dish if you have the right ideas and creativity. With wonderful ingredients you will make a bad dish if you lack the right inspiration. His belief is that the secret of successful cooking styles lies in the combination of high quality ingredients, good ideas and very skilled chefs. That leads to great dishes.

Except seaweed from Japan, all the products the team is cooking with are Italian. Most are even from the region of Venice. The supply chain is very well organized and happens completely by boat. Riccardo selects the producers himself and finds them via his network in the region. As a consequence, they also work in a very sustainable way in Oro Restaurant. He will never serve a mango from Peru or Brazil if he can source it in Sicily.

An important element in the cooking style of Riccardo is the presentation of the dishes. Most of them are true artworks and represent the meticulous way he is working as a chef. And even though this strong focus on the aesthetics, we can assure you that based on our tasting, the attention of the chef never drifted away from guaranteeing the taste is as top notch as the look and feel of what comes out of his kitchen.

Some of the dishes we tried :

The chef gets inspiration from history, art or music. This triggers an idea that he then transposes on a specific product in his head. He is convinced that he can even visualize flavors in his brain. So, before he walks into the kitchen, a big part of the creative process is finalized. Then he joins his team in the kitchen and together they start cooking. That process is organic and alle team members are involved. This leads to new dishes that afterwards get a role in a new menu. Riccardo values the feedback of the team in that process and incorporates their perspective.

Service & Wine

The service team of Oro Restaurant is managed by restaurant director Frederico. He can call himself lucky with a team of four extremely motivated and driven members. The team is rather small for the kind of service that Oro Restaurant is delivering to its guests. This is a clear choice of the chef and the restaurant director because they are convinced it enables them to make sure that every member of the team has the same values and aspirations. They want their service to make people think, to touch people’s feelings and to make them happy. Even though you get slapped in your face by the entire experience, still you feel utterly satisfied. That is exactly what they want to achieve. This is also what we experienced during our visit. The service is totally not stiff, not formal, and rather accessible. It feels adapted to the kind of guest who is dining in the restaurant. Even though the exclusive setting in Hotel Cipriani, a Belmond Hotel, jokes are never far away. But these informal contacts happen in a manner which surprisingly fits perfectly well for the occasion and elevates the whole visit to Oro Restaurant to a unique level. Genuine service, aligned with the kind of experience that can also be found in other properties that belong to the Belmond family, is what the team is offering and what guests can clearly appreciate.

Sommelier Luca created a wine offering which perfectly matches the cooking style of chef Riccardo Canella. More than 800 labels are available, of which the majority is Italian and French. Apart from the extensive wine offering, which is available both in pairing or a la carte, a non-alcoholic pairing is also available.

Why go? 

We are convinced it is not necessary to explain you why a trip to Venice should be on everybody’s bucket list. All the stories you heard about the fact that the city is crowded with tourists, are obviously correct. But do not let that stop you. The breathtaking views over the canals and the atmosphere in the unique, little streets of the city are something everybody must experience at least once in a lifetime. If you have the opportunity to spend a night or more in the mesmerizing Hotel Cipriani, a Belmond Hotel, the experience only becomes more mind blowing. The heaven of serenity you will experience in this ultra-luxury hotel will make your visit to Venice unforgettable. Combine that with the unique food of chef Riccardo Canella in Oro Restaurant and the treat is complete. Be prepared to get slapped in the face by his gorgeous and very tasty interpretation of Venice’s cuisine, serving the very best products around, while you get pampered by the restaurant staff who clearly understands what Belmond service is.