Had I been feeling sarcastic a couple of years ago and someone asked me how I planned to spend my evening, I might have said that I would buy a nice T-shirt on Government Street and enjoy a break in Centennial Square before dinner with friends on the corner of Douglas and Pandora.
Once the site of a spot known to locals as the Dougie, this hotel deteriorated so much that the new owners gutted it and christened it the Hotel Rialto. Nothing prepared me for the change when I visited with friends, who were equally impressed by the understated and elegant decor in the new lounge.
A comprehensive menu offers tapas in set trios for $14 (desserts $9). Servers offered useful input -- as friend Emma would observe later, a pleasant change from places that try to achieve trendy and only achieve bitchy. We pondered things over cocktails from a reasonably priced list. When we placed our order, we chose wine to go with our tapas.
Well, the wine came first, which was irritating, not only because this ignored our request, but we all had cocktails in front of us. Ten minutes after we asked for them, we received a glass of grissini, aptly described by Adam as the successful offspring of a pretzel and a beer nut. As my friends noted, they should consider offering these in the dining part of the lounge as well as the bar, since it was becoming apparent that it takes a while for the food hit your table. They were long gone before our starter, an unctuous lobster and blue crab dip served with grilled flat bread instead of the ubiquitous tortilla chips.
When our tapas arrived, we were impressed with what we saw -- a significant amount of effort is given to presentation. Everything was good, but some dishes definitely stood out. "Beef" dishes included veal ravioli with portobello mushroom ragout and roasted garlic cream sauce, which we loved as much as the chili-rubbed short rib paired with a parmesan studded disc of polenta. Roulade of New York strip steak was tasty, but none of us noticed spicy lobster stuffing, largely because it was a piece of meat and not a roulade -- and if the Bordelaise sauce was made with red wine, it wasn't from the robust section of the vin du carte.
Seared lamb sirloin with bourbon ancho sauce was OK, but we favoured a skewer of seared lamb, roasted shallot and chorizo. We had mixed feelings about the third dish, a lamb chop that lacked the advertised jumbo shrimp and goat cheese stuffing, though the meat was delicious and we enjoyed the red wine sauce studded with fresh cranberries.
Another standout was jerk-rubbed tuna with creamy black Thai rice -- an impressive combination of textures and flavours. Ceviche of tuna and blue crab, blended with roasted corn relish and saffron and grilled red pepper sauce could have used a little more acid. A deconstructed tuna tostada was fine, but paled in comparison to the other two dishes in this set. Rounding things out were jerk-rubbed chicken with poblano mango sauce and crunchy red cabbage slaw, a skewer of tender breast meat with peanut chili sauce and some chipotle-honey glazed chicken wings which were fine, but a bit of a letdown visually, as there were only three of them.
Desserts included a contemporary interpretation of a mille feuille with phyllo pastry, lemon curd and wild blueberry coulis, rich flourless chocolate ganache cake with vanilla gelato and cinnamon sugar, and a superb blueberry crumble with hazelnut and oat topping.
We would all return here. Portions aren't huge (consensus was that about 1.5 sets per person would make a light meal) but they are tapas, not entr脙漏es, and we each managed a taste of everything.
Our only gripe was that the food took too long. Service also needs a little work. It was good when we ordered and they checked to see that we were enjoying everything, but we felt invisible while we waited (and waited) for our food. This would have been understandable if they were busy, but they weren't. If things don't change, they will be in trouble when the room is full. And that would be a pity, because Veneto is a refreshing addition to downtown.
RATINGS
Rating 1 Below bad
Rating 2 Below average
Rating 3 Average
Rating 4 Above average
Rating 5 Excellent
