Cafe Venice — an Italian kitchen on Whitton High Street
Cafe Venice is an Italian restaurant on Whitton High Street, about 250 yards from the station. Pizza and calzone from the oven, a long list of pasta, salads, grilled meat and fish, gluten-free bases, vegan-friendly dishes and a children's menu. Tables are taken in person and by phone; larger groups are arranged in advance.
The street it sits on
A 1930s parade with a station at the end of it
Whitton High Street is one of the best-preserved 1930s parades in London, and the restaurant sits in the middle of it, between the shops the neighbourhood already uses.
The station is about 250 yards away, three or four minutes on foot, on the line out of London Waterloo, so dinner here works without a car. Drivers come off the A316; parking is on-street and run by Richmond Council, with restrictions that change from bay to bay, and there is no car park attached to the restaurant.
Twickenham stadium is 0.77 miles from the door. With an international on, the whole area behaves differently, and a table is worth booking rather than chancing.
What we cook
Pizza and pasta first, then everything around them
Pizza out of the oven and a long list of pasta hold the middle of the menu. Around them sit starters, salads that are a meal rather than a garnish, and grilled meat and fish for a full dinner: calzone, calamari strips, tagliatelle delle mare, mozzarella and tomato done plainly. Afterwards there is coffee, cake, pudding and ice cream, and a wine list meant for drinking with food rather than for reading.
Gluten-free
Gluten-free bases and gluten-free pasta are on the menu, not an off-menu favour. What we cannot offer is a separate kitchen — flour is in the air of every pizzeria. If you are coeliac rather than avoiding gluten by preference, say so when you order and staff will be straight with you.
Vegan and vegetarian
Several pizzas and pastas are made vegan-friendly on request. Ask before you order rather than after: some sauces are built on cheese or butter and cannot simply have it left out.
Children
There is a children's menu and there are high chairs, and nobody raises an eyebrow when a four-year-old wants plain pasta with nothing on it. Plain pasta with butter is not printed anywhere, and the kitchen will make it anyway.
Booking, takeaway and parties
Three ways in
A table for two to six
Ask at the counter or ring the restaurant. Friday and Saturday evenings are the two worth booking ahead, and any weekend with rugby at Twickenham is worth booking twice as far ahead.
Takeaway
Order by phone and collect from the counter. Pizza holds up on the walk home; a pasta dish under a lid carries on cooking, so weight a big collection order towards the oven. Delivery apps that list us set their own prices and timings.
Parties and functions
Birthdays, christenings, a rugby lunch. These are arranged by phone rather than online, because the room has to be laid out differently. A week of notice helps, more in December.
Collection orders come out of the same oven as everything else, so a busy Saturday puts a box behind the tables already sitting in the room. Ring ahead rather than arriving and waiting.
Finding us
Whitton, filed under Twickenham
Our postal town is Twickenham and our neighbourhood is Whitton, which is why one directory sends you to a High Street a mile and a half away while another gets it right. Both names point at the same parade, in the borough of Richmond upon Thames.
Third-party listings drift in other ways too: an aggregator will carry an old photograph, a stale description or a delivery price that was never ours. This website is the version we correct, and the route in from the station, the A316 and a match-day afternoon is set out on its own page.
Nothing here follows you around afterwards either: no advertising pixel, no analytics, no cookie of ours on your machine, which the privacy notice sets out line by line.
The kitchen, inspected
What the council found
The council recorded Good in all three assessed areas at its last inspection, in June 2025. Those areas are the ones the scheme sets out: hygienic food handling, the cleanliness and condition of the building, and the management of food safety. None of that needs taking on trust: the scheme is run by the Food Standards Agency with the borough, and every rating in England sits on the agency's public register.
Allergen information is kept in writing behind the counter. Ask for it, and staff will read it with you rather than reciting from memory, which is the only way of doing this that is worth anything.
Questions we get asked
Before you ring
Do I need to book?
Midweek, usually not. Friday and Saturday evenings, and any weekend with rugby at Twickenham, yes. Booking costs nothing and saves the conversation at the door.
Can you do a coeliac-safe meal?
We have gluten-free bases and gluten-free pasta and we handle them carefully, but this is one kitchen with flour in it. We will tell you honestly what the risk is instead of promising a guarantee we cannot make.
Is there a children's menu?
Yes, and high chairs. Plain pasta for a small child is not printed on it, but the kitchen will do it.
Do you deliver?
Collection is straightforward: ring the order through and pick it up. If a delivery app lists us, its prices and timings are its own, not ours.
Is there a car park?
Not one of ours. Parking on and around High Street is on-street and run by Richmond Council, and the restrictions change from bay to bay.