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• We're sad to report that Brek's Venice restaurant closed in October, 2017. It has been replaced by a supermarket.

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Brek Self-Service Restaurant

The Brek Ristorante in Venice isn't a mecca for gourmets, but it does offer bargain-priced meals for locals and footsore tourists in an air-conditioned dining room with a garden.

ABOVE: Customers place their orders in Brek's self-service restaurant. For a larger image, click here.

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by Durant Imboden

Brek Ristorante  is a chain of self-service restaurants and snack bars with about two dozen branches scattered around Italy. The company, which has been in business since 1975, caters to  a diverse audience that includes families, workers on lunch breaks, and budget tourists.

 

Brek has a branch in Venice near the railroad station, along the main route to the Piazza San Marco. On a sultry evening in July, a Brek blackboard's promise of air conditioning was too tempting to resist, and I followed a handful of tourists into the pleasantly cool restaurant (which is well beyond the entrance from the street, past the snack bar's espresso machine and take-out food counters).

As I approached the dining room, I saw a buffet serving station. The cafeteria-style menu included pastas, meats grilled to order, a salad bar, and other items. (The menu on Brek's Web site shows a long list of soups, risotti, pastas, gnocchi, lasagne, hamburger steaks, chicken, roast beef, vegetables, and more, but not everything on the list was available during my visit.)

I picked up a tray, placed my order, and waited while the woman behind the counter made a fresh batch of green ravioli with butter sauce. I later added a slice of apple tart, a roll, and a bottle of Pilsner Urquell beer to my tray on my way to the cash register. The meal's total cost was €11,30--an exceptional deal by Venetian standards.

The food wasn't up to the standards of Autogrill's Ciao Ristorante buffets elsewhere in Italy, especially in the dessert category. Still, my moderately-priced meal was decent enough, and Brek is worth considering if you're near the railroad station and want to enjoy a casual sit-down lunch or dinner without spending a lot of money. On a hot summer day, the air conditioning is welcome--and in more benign weather, you can carry your tray through the dining room's glass doors to a table in the garden. 

Where to find Brek in Venice:

Brek is on the Rio Terà Lista di Spagna, the busy pedestrian street to your left as you exit the Venice Santa Lucia Railroad Station. It's only a minute or two from the station as you walk toward San Marco. Look for the entrance on your left, beneath a sign that reads "Ristorante Bar Brek."

Again, the ristorante is behind the snack bar, so ignore the food counters near the front and continue toward the back of the building, where you'll see the serving station in the photo at the top of this page.

The last time we checked, the restaurant's hours of operation were 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily. The snack bar  inside the entrance is open every day from 7 a.m. until 10 p.m.

More photos of Brek Ristorante Venezia:

It's easy to miss Brek as you walk up the Rio Terà Lista di Stagna, especially if the street is more crowded than in this photo. Look for the white "Ristorante Bar Brek" Sign hanging over the street. Don't be put off by the ordinary-looking snack bar inside the doorway--the ristorante is to the rear, in a climate-controlled dining room.

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Blackboard menus show what's being served on any given day.

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About the author:

Durant Imboden has written about Venice, Italy since 1996. He covered Venice and European travel at About.com for 4-1/2 years before launching Europe for Visitors (including Venice for Visitors) with Cheryl Imboden in 2001.

PC Magazine has called this "the premier visitors' site for Venice, Italy." Over the years, it has helped more than 30 million travelers. For more information, see About our site, our Europe for Visitors press clippings, and our reader testimonials.

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