Rarely do I so strongly disagree with fellow yelpers, but the meal I had here was extremely disappointing. I could not in good conscience recommend this place to anyone. My boyfriend and I tried two of their pastas and neither of us could believe how poor they were. Apologies for the long review, but bear with me as I explain why everything was so poor.
I had one chance to have dinner in Venice, since I wouldn't be in the city for long, and did my due diligence to find an affordance Italian restaurant with great reviews. I'll be the first to admit I came to A Le Tole with high hopes and an expectation for delicious food. We ordered the ravioli and the black spaghetti. The ricotta in the ravioli had a horrible gritty texture, the sauce was flavorless, and the pasta itself was poor because the edges of the ravioli were too thick to cook evenly. Yes, the portion is generous, but I'd rather have a small portion of scrumptious ravioli. The black spaghetti was flavorless (not mildly flavored to complement the seafood, just flavorless), the scallops were small bits that had to be chewed for minutes because they were so rubbery, and the sauce was gritty with no flavor. I slightly preferred the black spaghetti because at least the slices of asparagus were good and pasta itself was cooked properly. I was so disappointed to eat two dishes that somehow both had gritty textures as if there was sand in the ricotta cheese and in the sauce.
There service was okay, but they forgot our bread basket and, in general, they were neither attentive nor prompt. We had to ask for the check a couple times and decline dessert multiple times. In the U.S., I would have brought my concerns directly to the restaurant and asked them to try my dish to see why I felt it was not good. However, because I don't speak Italian, I didn't do this and was worried that I would not be able to explain why I found the food disappointing.
In conclusion, don't be lured in by the fresh pasta in the window. I am not sure how other yelpers had such an amazing experience. I can only hope we ended up their on a bad night, but if you have one meal to eat in Venice, I would not make it this place. The only redeeming quality was that the house red was delicious. I know 1 star is harsh, but both myself and my boyfriend have never walked away from a meal so disappointed. My boyfriend asked me multiple times if I was sure I had looked this place up and it had good reviews, because he couldn't believe the meal we had. read more