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Review: The Venice

A delicious bite of Italy on Walnut Street.

Photo Kevin O'Riley

Pasta and dates from The Venice.

Last week, I walked into a swank but cozy little space on Walnut Street for dinner. The tables and chairs were cherry and black. The music was in Italian, and the evening sun was pouring in through the front windows. We were greeting by a smiling face who told us to sit anywhere we liked. We grabbed a little table halfway into the restaurant and soon dug into one of the yummiest meals I’ve had in a while.

First, here’s a little history: In downtown Springfield, the space just west of the always-hopping Gailey’s Breakfast Café has housed a handful of food-focused businesses in the past few years. Emack & Bolio served up sandwiches and ice cream before moving to the south side. Then Lettuce Cater to You moved in, if only briefly. Now Venice at the Seville is there. It started as a bar owned by Nick Russo (of St. Michael’s). But now it has been newly taken over fresh management—Tim Caldwell and Marty Almaraz—who’ve turned it into a combo bar and good-foodery. Almaraz and Caldwell were formerly co-owners of Nonna’s Italian American Cafe. But don’t expect Venice to be a Nonna’s twin. There are pasta entrées on the menu, but they lean more toward adventurous flavor combinations.

I ate at Venice with my boyfriend, Eli Estes, and we went the app/entrée/dessert route. But we decided that on our next visit, we’ll be ordering a variety of apps and drinks instead. There are a handful of red wines, a handful of whites, several cocktails and a beer menu as well. It’d be a great place to spend an evening sampling the appetizers and working your way down the drink menu. Eli ordered a glass of cabernet sauvignon, and I ordered a dirty gin martini (because I thought I wanted to feel like James Bond for a second).

There were several appetizers we wanted to try, and it was kind of hard to limit ourselves to one. What we decided on was the almond-stuffed dates for $6. They are big, juicy medjool dates with a whole almond inside. The whole thing is wrapped in crispy bacon, drizzled with a balsamic reduction and topped with bleu cheese crumbles. They were decadent. I don’t think we said one real word from the time they came out until the time we’d finished them. Our vocabulary was limited to “Mmmm.” If you’ve ever had the bacon-wrapped dates at Touch, these are not quite the same. The sauce is less sweet, more balsamic-y; the bleu cheese is sharper. I really enjoyed the crunchy almond inside, although on my first bite, it sort of threw me off. The almond is about the same size and shape of a medjool pit, so until I realized what I was biting into it, I was a wee bit freaked out. It’s an almond not a pit, and it’s very tasty.

After that, I ordered the cilantro pesto with pumpkin seeds (as opposed to the typical basil and pine nut pesto). It’s served tossed in linguine with sun-dried tomatoes and topped with Parmesan. The pesto was so delicious, and I have a weakness for sun-dried tomatoes; so yummy! The cilantro was a nice change of pace from typical pesto; it tasted fresher and brighter. I added chicken for $4, but I think if I ordered it again, I would not do that. The pasta held its own and didn’t need any additional flavors, and I wasn’t really hungry enough to feel like I absolutely needed the chicken. Unless you’re dying for some protein, I recommend getting the pasta plain; $4 is kind of a lot.

Eli ordered the spinach lasagna. You can chose between marinara sauce or mornay sauce, and he chose mornay. It was very, very rich and a nice complement to simply delicious lasagna.

Our dessert tied with our appetizer for my favorite part of the meal. There are a handful of sinful-looking things on the dessert menu, but we opted for the café caramel crème brûlée. It was the best crème brûlée I’ve ever had. There’s just a hint of coffee and caramel flavor, but it’s just enough to make the custard stand out in a crowd of local crème brûlées. And the caramelized sugar shell on top? Well, that’s always satisfying to crack through, isn’t it? This one was so pretty, smooth and warm that I hardly wanted to break it. Sort of. That sentiment lasted about four seconds, and then we dug in.

I was a little bummed that Venice was so empty the night we ate there (we were the only couple in the place). The food was great, and I think more people should give it a try. I know we’ll be back, probably to dive face-first into the lobster ravioli with shrimp and scallops.