Venice's Palazzina Grassi Offers The Chef Experience

Thanks to the unique atmosphere of an home full of charm and vitality, sophisticated yet informal, Palazzina Grassi offers a unique experience that makes each guest “feel like a real Venetian” for a while. Palazzina Grassi offers those who love the most authentic side of Venice an eclectic proposal that shuns the idea of fast-paced pre-packaged tourism. Though it has been open for just over a year, it has already been ranked among the finest hotels in the world and has become a point of reference for international businesspeople and celebrities (such as Johnny Depp, who stayed here with his staff for over two months while filming The Tourist).

Palazzina Grassi boasts 2800 square meters of floor space and, in addition to 26 rooms, it also features the PG's Club Restaurant: an unusual and exclusive luxurious cicchetteria and Venetian-style club restaurant open for the hotel's guest and to the club members only .PG's Club Restaurant represents the quintessence of the philosophy of hospitality and the sublimation of excellence and local traditions that have inspired the hotel: an elliptical frame of 19th-century columns embraces the main dining room, in which two tall tables – over 7 metres long – have pride of place, enclosing the tables and chairs in the middle of the room, arranged in a cosy and informal way to evoke the atmosphere and interior of a luxurious yacht. The show kitchen looks out over one of the long tables, creating a milieu in which guests can interact and get in touch with the finest ingredients and flavours.

Luigi Frascella, the chef at Palazzina Grassi, is the mastermind in the kitchen. The Puglia native is just 33 but has already been cooking for over 15 years, developing a style based on Mediterranean flavours: “simple” Venetian recipes using the finest ingredients and Oriental rigour when it comes to preparation techniques.After completing his studies, Frascella trained at the schools of the great Italian masters: Adelio Donati, Gualtiero Marchesi and Giorgio Locatelli. It was above all at the Locanda Locatelli in London that Frascella began to fuse the finest elements of different traditions in his preparations. While he was working at the Locanda the chef had the opportunity to cook for a number of celebrities who appreciated his talents, becoming loyal customers and friends.He then went to work at Zuma, also in London, where he gained enormous knowledge about Japanese cuisine and its virtuosities: the types of cuts, the “relationship” with ingredients and the cooking techniques. A six-month internship at Zuma Tokyo rounded out his knowledge of this cuisine. During his four years behind the counter of the Japanese restaurant, Frascella also learned to develop a special dialogue and interaction with customers – celebrities from the world of entertainment, politics and business – seated at the long table in front of the open kitchen.When he returned to Italy he moved to Venice he initially worked at the Monaco restaurant and then at Fiore (one Michelin star), before joining PG's Club Restaurant at Palazzina Grassi.

At the club restaurant of the five-star hotel, the chef offers dishes that interpret the excellence and local provenance of all the ingredients used in the kitchen (from lagoon fish to regional meat and charcuterie, as well as fruit and vegetables from the island of Sant'Erasmo), prepared with the sophisticated techniques of the Far East. In addition to this, simplicity and consistency, which have long inspired the chef, combine in each recipe.All the dishes prepared by the kitchen of PG's Club Restaurant, under Frascella's guidance, are made with ingredients that the chef carefully selects every day. The pasta, bread and desserts are homemade, and the restaurant constantly seeks and hunts out the region's unique products: from Montagnana ham to erbette rave (pink chard), and from castraure (artichoke sprouts) to canestrei (typical lagoon scallops).

The restaurant's long show-cooking counter and the approach of Frascella himself, who has the great ability to communicate warmly and sensitively with his guests, complete a dining experience that fully reflects the philosophy of Palazzina Grassi: a warm, informal and perfect atmosphere – like an home full of charm and vitality– where you can enjoy the finest that the city on the water has to offer and feel like real Venetian.
Palazzina Grassi also offers interested guests the chance to spend a day with the chef of PG's Club Restaurant. This “chef experience” starts with the morning shopping at city markets and ends with a dinner created based on the guests' tastes and personalities. It is prepared together and then enjoyed while sitting by the spectacular show kitchen of the large room decorated with mahogany boiserie, allowing the most sophisticated connoisseurs of fine dining to glean the secrets of this talented chef.