CoVino - Wine & Spirits Magazine

Restaurant Review

CoVino

by marisa-huff • July 16, 2015

photo by Nan McElroy

Octopus salad with fresh favas, beets and balsamic-glazed onions

Andrea Lorenzon is the host and sole proprietor of the 14-seat “enoiteca” CoVino, arguably Venice’s most enjoyable place to dine at the moment. He’s a carbon copy of his father Mauro (see Maschereta), but with the spunk of a 27-year-old. Opened in May 2013 together with Cesare Benelli (see Al Covo), CoVino offers many of the same pristine ingredients served at Al Covo, but presented in a younger, more playful iteration. The three-course menu (€36) allows guests to choose freely between “something to begin with, something to continue with, and something to finish with.” From the L-shaped open kitchen, chefs Dimitri Gris and Orsola Dissera Bragadin serve local clams with a creamy bean puree, topped with nasturtium leaves and elderflowers, or oven-roasted cod with tomatoes, potatoes, taggiasca olives and Pantelleria capers. Dessert may come in the form of a savory, deconstructed cassata of buffalo’s milk ricotta, Sicilian almonds and pistachios, chocolate nubs and candied fruit. The wine list is an exciting mix of Italian and French labels produced by winemakers that color outside the lines. A €50 magnum of La Ganga Brun Brun made outside Pordenone is a méthode champenoise blend of pinots bianco, grigio and nero, aged 36 months on the lees before disgorging.

Calle del Pestrin, Castello 3829, Venice, Italy

Italian

+39 041 2412705

covinovenezia.com

This story appears in the print issue of August 2015.
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TAGS Italian Italy Restaurant Venice

David Paradela
Associate Editor

David joined Wine & Spirits in 2021 after immersing himself in the world of wine at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally from Boston, he graduated from Boston University with a degree in English and completed a master’s degree in Publishing and Writing from Emerson College in 2021. Prior to working at the magazine, he served as an editor and staff writer for the music blog Sound of Boston and worked in scientific publishing. Aside from wine, he loves basketball, arguing about Taylor Swift’s best album, and everything Greta Gerwig touches.

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Corey Warren moved to New York in 2015—fifteen years too late to join The Strokes—after earning a degree at Cornell in Comparative Literature. He started polishing glasses at Betony and threw himself into the restaurant world. Later, while a captain at Aquavit, he began working part time in the Wine & Spirits tasting department. Now, in addition to running tastings, he serves as critic for the wines of the Loire, Southern France, Argentina and South Africa. Corey likes almost anything bubbly, from Miller High Life, the Champagne of beers, to Champagne, the Champagne of Champagne, but he’ll drink anything once, and loves finding unique wines.

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After graduating with a degree in journalism from the Universidad de Chile in Santiago, Patricio Tapia attended Bordeaux University in France, where he studied for a diploma in wine tasting and winemaking. Since then, he has visited wine regions around the world and authored several books, including his annual Descorchados, a Chilean wine guide; The Wines of Colchagua Valley; TodoVino and Wines for Great Occasions. Tapia is also the South American correspondent for The Oxford Companion to Wine, The World Atlas of Wine and Oz Clarke’s Pocket Wine Book. For the past three years, he’s been a host on the El Gourmet channel in South America. At Wine & Spirits, Tapia is the critic for the wines of Argentina, Chile and Spain, and regularly contributes articles on these regions.