Pizza. Italian.
Mid-City: 134 N. Carrollton Ave. 504-488-7991. Map.
Lunch and dinner Wednesday-Sunday.
Casual
AE DC DS MC V
Website
WHY IT'S NOTEWORTHY
New Orleanians have a taste for scruffiness, believing that food in a well-worn restaurant will always taste better than the same food in a squeaky-clean one. Venezia exemplifies that effect in the Italian arena. A neighborhood Italian cafe for fifty years, it's attracted three generations of a loyal clientele. The main attraction is the size of the portions and the low prices. And the pizza, which is the best food in the house and some of the best in town.
WHY IT'S GOOD
The pizza is old-style, with a thin crust, a restrained amount of sauce and cheese, a crisp bottom, and a generally fine texture and flavor. The servers discourage your ordering it because it takes a long time, during which you're occupying a table. Be insistent. The standard Italian food is just okay. And the seafood dishes sound much better than they are.
BACKSTORY
Venezia opened in 1959, at a time when New Orleans Italian cooking had evolved far from its roots, even though everybody swore this was the way it was all cooked in Sicily when they emigrated seventy years earlier. It was also a time when pizza was catching on across America. Venezia was one of New Orleans' first vendors of pizza, and the habit stuck. The restaurant took very deep water for weeks after Katrina, but opened a second location in Old Jefferson while rebuilding the original restaurant on Carrollton near Canal. The old place needed a renovation, and its return was cause for rejoicing among the regulars.
DINING ROOM
It's one big room with miscellaneous Italian travel posters on the walls. The kitchen is semi-open, enough so you can monitor the pizza ovens as you wait patiently for yours. The service staff has a style all its own, and wishes you would listen to them.
ESSENTIAL DISHES
Fried eggplant.
Fried artichoke hearts.
Garlic cheese bread.
Italian salad.
Pizza.
Manicotti.
Lasagna.
Fettuccine Alfredo.
Spaghetti with red sauce and meatballs or Italian sausage.
Eggplant Vatican (a fried eggplant boat topped with shrimp and crawfish in a cream sauce).
Trout Cynthia (fried, covered with a seafood cream sauce).
Spumone.
Bread pudding.
FOR BEST RESULTS
They do cook everything to order here, and it takes awhile. Better get a salad.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT
The seafood with cream sauces here sound marvelous, but they're over the top. The red sauce has a flavor profile that even a child would like. Which may be perfect for this family-style eatery. Discount the enthusiasm of the regulars. It's more about the lopsided quantity-to-price ratio for which this place is famous.
FACTORS OTHER THAN FOOD
Up to three points, positive or negative, for these characteristics. Absence of points denotes average performance in the matter.
- Dining Environment
- Consistency +1
- Service -1
- Value +1
- Attitude -1
- Wine and Bar -1
- Hipness -1
- Local Color +1
SPECIAL ATTRIBUTES
- Good for business meetings
- Open Sunday lunch and dinner
- Open all afternoon
- Unusually large servings
- Good for children
- Easy, nearby parking
This review was updated with new information on 11/11/2009.
A list of all 275 full, current reviews is here.