Sometimes it’s more fun to have the splurge meal of the day be lunch than dinner, providing a reason to stroll around all afternoon and lazily walk it off well in advance of the evening or if you’re on a city break, it creates the perfect opportunity for wine-fueled shopping. Gio’s did just that. Located in the stunning Four Seasons Venice, I could have happily wandered around the hotel’s perfectly designed spaces all day in search of the waterside venue. It was absolute modern elegance- magic.

After enjoying a glass of champs on the terrace, I opted to take my lunch table inside as the birds were exceptionally aggressive about the apero snacks. Hard to say how they’d feel about pasta. Many other tables did the same and eventually a man with a hawk showed up to scare them off. Venice problems.

I started with the seared tuna which came with a fennel, orange, and raisin salad. It was all nice and light and I must say much better than the raw seafood of Lineadombra.

The pasta was the best I had on the trip- a rigatoni-like structure with a rich lobster sauce topped with chunks of lobster and the little bit of basil. Heaven and while I’m not generally a sauce person, it was all I could do not to swipe up the sauce with some bits of bread.

Stupidly I skipped dessert because I had lingered for so long with the birds, then lunch. My espresso came with an elegant silver-footed plate of cookies of various varieties. They were ok, but definitely the dry, crumbly cookie you’d only want with coffee.

If I’m lucky enough to continue to return to Venice on repeat, Gio’s will absolutely become a staple in regular rotation. It just gave the air that Peggy Guggenheim so romantically describes about the city – “I decided Venice would be my future home. I had always loved it more than any place on earth and felt I would be happy alone there….to live in Venice or even visit it means that you fall in love with the city itself. There is nothing left in your heart for anyone else.”