Established Italian Restaurant Serving Venetian Specialities
Ziani’s is an Italian restaurant serving Venetian specialities with favourites such as Fegato alla Veneziana (thin strips of calf’s liver cooked with onions and red wine vinegar), Tagliatelle Tartufate (home-made noodles sautéed with wild mushrooms, courgettes and truffle olive oil), Coda di Rospo alla Graticola (charcoal grilled monk fish) and a wonderful choice of desserts including Creppe Ziani (pancakes filled with mascarpone cream, topped with crushed almond biscuits and Tia Maria).
The restaurant is located in the heart of Chelsea, near to the Town Hall and just off Kings Road. The nearest tube stations are Sloane Square and South Kensington.
A special mention to Roberto Colussi, a founder and managing director of Ziani, who put his heart and soul into making Ziani’s a well-loved Italian restaurant serving the best Venetian food since 1984. His expertise and dedication made Ziani’s Restaurant an excellent choice for customers for many years and more to come.
A Brief History of Ziani
The Venetian Republic was a glittering phenomenon which played a prominent role in the history of European art and politics for over four centuries. In the twelfth century, when the city was emerging as an independent powerful state, the government transferred into the hands of the aristocracy to which the ancient family of Ziani belonged. Fabulously wealthy, the Ziani were popularly believed to have derived their fortune from a golden cow discovered in an ancestor’s cellar. In electing Sebastiano Ziani Doge in 1172, the Republic chose a man of vision. For not only was he a great statesman who led Venice to the forefront of world politics but he was also a designer. It was he who gave Venice the Palazzo San Marco almost as we know it today by laying out the herring-bone brick square and ordering the surrounding houses to be linked by arches and colonnades. He also erected the two massive antique pillars which dominate the Piazette and on which St Theodore and the famous lion of St Mark now stand.
During the long reign of Sebastiano’s son, Pietro, the Venetians enriched their city and their fortunes from the wreck of the fallen Byzantine Empire and firmly established their trading network throughout the Adriatic, Eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea. Under the leadership of the Ziani, Venice flowered into what was to become the most famous, powerful and glorious maritime empire. Adrian Ziani de Ferranti, the current Chairman of the restaurant and one of the founding directors with Roberto Colussi, is a direct descendent of the Venetian Doge.