Cafe Venice Whitton: Is the High Street Italian Still Open?
Cafe Venice Whitton is listed as permanently closed on OpenTable, and Cafe Venice Limited, the company once registered at 49 High Street, TW2 7LB, was dissolved by voluntary strike-off on 1 September 2026.
Tripadvisor still shows the restaurant without a closure notice, and the newest review on its first page describes a January 2026 visit. The Food Standards Agency keeps a hygiene rating of 5 from June 2025 on file. This website is independent of the restaurant and its owners and records only what those sources show.
Is Cafe Venice in Whitton Still Open?
No trading record for Cafe Venice runs past January 2026, the visit month of the newest review on the first page of its Tripadvisor listing. One listing states the closure outright, two say nothing about it, and the company register points the same way as the one that does. Google Maps refused to load without JavaScript, so its status is the one gap.
The six sources disagree in ways that change what a diner should expect:
| Source | What the listing showed on 5 November 2026 | What it proves |
|---|---|---|
| OpenTable | The notice "This restaurant is permanently closed", with no booking widget on the page | A direct closure statement, though OpenTable gives no date for it |
| Tripadvisor | No closure notice, 133 reviews, and a first page that ends its dates in February 2026 | Only that nobody has reported the closure to Tripadvisor yet |
| SquareMeal | No closure notice, a full week of opening hours, and "Review Coming Soon" in place of reviews | Very little, since SquareMeal shows no date for any of it |
| Food Standards Agency | An active record for Cafe Venice at 49 High Street with no new inspection pending | That the June 2025 inspection result is still on file |
| Companies House | Cafe Venice Limited dissolved on 1 September 2026 after a voluntary strike-off | The strongest evidence that the business behind the name has stopped |
| Google Maps | The page did not load without JavaScript, so no status was recorded | Nothing either way until someone checks it on a phone |
The company record carries the most weight of the six. A strike-off has legal conditions attached, and the filings behind this one give a date for every step.
Cafe Venice Limited and Its Voluntary Strike-Off
Cafe Venice Limited was incorporated on 14 November 2000 under company number 04107282, with its nature of business registered as licensed restaurants (SIC 56101). Its registered office sat at 49 High Street, Whitton until February 2026. One director stayed on the register from incorporation to dissolution, while the six other officer appointments had ended before the company closed.
The Companies House filing history records the last year of the company in this order:
| Date | What Companies House recorded on that day | Filing |
|---|---|---|
| 18 December 2025 | Full accounts for the year to 31 March 2025, filed under the total exemption rules | AA |
| 26 February 2026 | Registered office moved from 49 High Street, Whitton to an address in Hampton, TW12 | AD01 |
| 29 May 2026 | Final full accounts, made up to 31 March 2026, filed two months after the year end | AA |
| 5 June 2026 | Application by the company to strike itself off the register | DS01 |
| 16 June 2026 | First Gazette notice for the voluntary strike-off published in The Gazette | GAZ1(A) |
| 1 September 2026 | Final Gazette notice, with the company dissolved via voluntary strike-off | GAZ2(A) |
GOV.UK attaches a trading condition to that 5 June application. A company can be struck off only if it "has not traded or sold off any stock in the last 3 months", so Cafe Venice Limited had to have stopped trading by early March 2026 at the latest. That fits the move of the registered office away from High Street on 26 February. A new owner could still reopen the unit under the old name through a different company, and the hygiene record for 49 High Street, which outlived the dissolved company, is the one official document that describes the kitchen itself.
Cafe Venice Food Hygiene Rating
Cafe Venice holds a food hygiene rating of 5, the top score on the 0 to 5 scale, from an inspection by Richmond upon Thames council on 12 June 2025. The Food Standards Agency register files the business as a restaurant, cafe or canteen under FHRS ID 1574587.
The inspector marked all three assessed areas as Good:
- Hygienic food handling. This area covers preparation, cooking, reheating, cooling and storage, and the inspector rated it Good.
- Cleanliness and condition of facilities. Layout, ventilation, hand washing facilities and pest control fall under this heading, which also came out as Good.
- Management of food safety. Here the inspector judges the checks in place and how far standards can be trusted to hold, and gave the same mark.
The record was still live in November 2026, with no new rating pending. A rating describes the kitchen on the day of inspection, so this one says how Cafe Venice ran in June 2025 and nothing about the unit now. Diners on Tripadvisor rated the restaurant across 2025 with far less agreement than the inspector showed.
Cafe Venice Reviews on Tripadvisor and OpenTable
Tripadvisor rates Cafe Venice 3.6 out of 5 from 133 reviews, and its page header ranked the restaurant #99 of 182 in Twickenham on 5 November 2026. The meta description on the same page still says #109 of 189, an older count that Tripadvisor has not refreshed.
The first page of 15 reviews splits sharply. Six give five stars, one gives four, one gives three, and seven give one or two. Dates on that page run from February 2020 to February 2026, and two of the 2025 entries sit at opposite ends: a five-star "Excellent food" in July and a one-star "lost its way" in August. The newest on the page, written on 8 February 2026 about a January visit, gives two stars under the title "Shame one nice meal.... then not so great."
OpenTable tells a different story with far less data. It shows 4.6 out of 5 from 8 reviews, and the last recorded diner ate there on 18 June 2022. Nothing on OpenTable covers the years after that, so the Tripadvisor figure is the better guide to how Cafe Venice was rated near the end. Their price bands differ too.
Cafe Venice Opening Times, Prices and Menu in Old Listings
Listed opening times for Cafe Venice disagree, and neither listing dates them. OpenTable gives Thursday hours of 12:00 to 21:30, while SquareMeal shows the same day opening at 17:00. Sunday runs from 12:30 to 21:00 on OpenTable and from 12:00 to 22:00 on SquareMeal. With the company dissolved, both timetables may describe a restaurant that no longer trades, so this page repeats no full schedule.
On price, OpenTable puts Cafe Venice at "£25 and under", SquareMeal at an average of £30 to £49, and Tripadvisor in its $$ to $$$ range.
Cuisine is where the three listings line up. Each lists Cafe Venice as Italian, two add Mediterranean, and all three mention gluten-free and vegetarian or vegan-friendly options. No dated menu or price list could be found from any source, so none is given here. The address is the other detail that never changes from one listing to the next.
Cafe Venice Address on Whitton High Street
49 High Street, Whitton, Twickenham, TW2 7LB is the address that the Food Standards Agency, OpenTable, Tripadvisor and SquareMeal all give for Cafe Venice. Whitton sits in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, and Wikipedia gives Twickenham (TW2) as the usual post town for Whitton residents, which is why listings file the restaurant under Twickenham.
Whitton station lies about 240 metres from number 49 in a straight line, measured between the FSA map point for the restaurant and the station coordinates on Wikipedia. South Western Railway runs two trains an hour off-peak from there to London Waterloo via Richmond and two to Windsor & Eton Riverside. The station is in fare zone 5. It recorded 1.291 million entries and exits in 2024-25.
Twickenham Stadium, at 200 Whitton Road, is about 1.2 km (0.76 miles) from the same point as the crow flies. The Rugby Football Union ground holds 82,000 for rugby, and at least one diner combined the two: a four-star Tripadvisor review from August 2023 is titled "Enjoyable Italian dinner after rugby at Twickenham". The parade around number 49 is older than Cafe Venice Limited by about seven decades.
Whitton High Street Since the 1930s
Whitton High Street took shape after Whitton station opened on Percy Road on 6 July 1930. Houses replaced the market gardens, new shop parades went up, and that stretch of Percy Road was renamed High Street. Wikipedia's article on Whitton calls it "one of the best-preserved 1930s high streets in London".
Kneller Hall is the older landmark nearby. The painter Sir Godfrey Kneller built a house there in 1709, the property was renamed Kneller Hall after his death in 1723, and it housed the Royal Military School of Music until 2021. Radnor House plans to move its senior pupils into the building.
The street has been patched and rebuilt in places; in 1944 a V-1 flying bomb scored a direct hit on 81 High Street. A £2 million regeneration in 2014 brought new street lighting and yorkstone pavements, and a £5 million station redevelopment was completed in December 2016. The A316 Chertsey Road, built through the south of Whitton around the time the parades went up, is the main road in for anyone driving over to eat.
How to Check Cafe Venice Before Travelling to Whitton
Check three free sources before making a trip to Cafe Venice, because the listings were out of step with each other in November 2026:
- Google Maps. Open the app on a phone, search "Cafe Venice Whitton", look for a "Permanently closed" label, and sort the reviews by newest to see the latest dated visit.
- The FSA register. Look up the postcode TW2 7LB on ratings.food.gov.uk, because a different business name at 49 High Street would point to a new operator.
- Companies House. Search for any new company using the Cafe Venice name or the 49 High Street address, bearing in mind that a sole trader would not appear there at all.
A phone number still appears on OpenTable and SquareMeal, but neither listing shows when it was last confirmed. If all three checks come back empty, treat Cafe Venice as closed and choose another restaurant on Whitton High Street.