Al Giardinetto - a restaurant in a 15th century palace garden

Gardens spilling over and into the courtyards - this is the impression I always get when I go for an extended lunch to a very particular garden restaurant located in the 15th century palazzo Zorzi, in the sestriere di Castello: Al Giardinetto - da Severino. Extended because I simply love sitting here enjoying their outstanding food. To learn more about that I invite you to take a look at their menu here.
Wines and shrubbery shielding the guests from the sun in the corte interna = courtyard. Walls painted in typical Venetian red liven up this courtyard dining area
I had lunch at Il Giardinetto (meaning "the small garden") two weeks ago, on a beautiful summer day with no clouds in sight. So it was warm enough to enjoyrelax sitting in their spacious decked garden - covered by a groviglio of vines. They even have air-conditioning (small fans) hung up all over in the garden, connected with cables that are not easily seen as the ambiance is green, green, green, to make sure a light breeze makes lunchers feel refreshed from the rather hot sun in late summer.
My light lunch consisted in tagliolini ai granchi (crab) and insalata dell'estuario (Venetian lagoon salad) which is usually green salad, the softest and juciest carrots you can imagine, and tomatoes. This was followed by a slightly less light dessert - being a zuppa inglese. But they have their own recipe here for zuppa inglese, a very colorful one as you will see below.
Insalata dell'Estuario comes first, with so soft carrots that you can only find here ... at least that is my personal impression. It was seasoned with the finest olive oil "Rustico" produced near Lake Garda (Moniga del Garda)
Home-made tagliolini in the most perfect sugo al granchio and tiny tomato cubes, seasoned with olive oil
La Zuppa Inglese com'รจ fatto qui
I love this place because it is such a haven and oasis in the midst of Venice, just a few steps across two bridges from the central Campo SS Filipo e Giacomo, in Ruga Giuffa. The food is excellent and I always recommend this place, as well as my family does, to all those that want a taste of Venetian traditional home-made food. And it is a well-known family-run restaurant, as you can read here.
Now back to their fantastic garden: here are grapes from which a particular sweet wine is produced, by the way, now is the right time for harvesting them. 
Ripe grapes separating one "garden room" from another - in fact there are more garden compartments, you can choose where to sit, either next to the entrance or farther away under huge white sun shades.
So here is your first impression of this garden, I will be back with more pictures from this restaurant garden later on.
Vines, yucca, and the omnipresent fatsia plants in Venice
Hidden garden parts, garden rooms separated by pot plants and flower beds, oleanders, yuccas, and agave plants in pots at the window sills