Creamed tuna in puff pastries. [Photo provided to China Daily]

"We've had to catch up with places like Milan and London," Turco says, "to internationalize our outlook while hanging on to local flavors."

So what are his "musts" for an authentic Venetian menu?

"Cicchetti, of course," he begins, ticking off a list with his fingers.

"Risotto－we do four or five different ones, though it requires long prep to do well. Bread and croissants made in-house. Fresh fish every day. Like here in the cooking school," he says, "the goal is to transform what we find in the market into something special."

A beautifully restored environment like the Gritti Palace, of course, adds an extra patina of "special". The dining room spills out onto a dockside terrace－the choicest tables in fine weather.

Turco leaves me there as he returns to the kitchen for the lunchtime rush. I linger over a fantasy of baked cod and Parmesan cream inside a delicate phyllo pastry. Next comes a black risotto fragrant with squid ink and cheese－studded with succulent cuttlefish from the morning market foray. The recommended wine is rose, strawberry-fruity in the nose but nice and dry on the palate.

The sun shines cheerfully, and my outside table is so close to the passing gondoliers, sporting their striped shirts and pert straw hats, that I can almost touch them.

For visitors who have perhaps come for the ongoing Venice Biennale, or the Milan Expo just a short train ride away, it's mealtime magic in Italy's romantic city of canals.