When Little Venice staff say they are using fresh herbs in their new spring menu they aren’t kidding. MEF Managing Director Emilio Barbieri takes great pride in picking them on his way to work every morning from the garden at sister restaurant Fourways Inn in Warwick. “The chef at Fourways grows the herbs hydroponically,” said Mr Barbieri. “The water is taken from the ponds, filtered and then used to water the herbs. That way the water isn’t wasted.”

Little Venice Executive Chef, Danny Lim, also brings in herbs grown from his own garden.

Mr Barbieri said the sun and high humidity in Bermuda made the Island a great place to grow certain herbs such as basil and sage.

“The climate here is a blessing,” said Mr Barbieri. “The aroma of the sage is just beautiful.”

That is why the restaurant on Bermudiana Road has just launched a new spring menu focusing on fresh herbs and other local ingredients such as fresh caught fish. A typical special might include home made pasta stuffed with rockfish blended with fresh herbs.

“Fishermen are always bringing in fresh catches for us,” said Mr Barbieri. “It is amazing what you can do here in Bermuda.”

Last Christmas a local fisherman bought them a tuna that was over 1,000lbs in weight. It was the largest tuna ever caught in local waters. Customers gobbled it up, and it was gone before the New Year.

Head Chef Michele Celentano said to him, the king of Italian ingredients is basil and next in line would be sage.

“One of our most popular dishes is homemade pasta with a butter and sage sauce,” said Mr Celentano. “It is very simple. The main focus of the new spring menu is using local ingredients. We want to give a new twist to the restaurant. We want customers to feel like there is something new to taste.”

He thought people today were paying attention to what they were eating, were more health conscious and more interested in fresh ingredients.

Mr Barbieri called the new menu a marriage between Bermudian and Mediterranean cuisine.

The new menu is available for dinner and there is also a happy hour sampler available. One of their popular appetisers, polipo, involves octopus and fresh herbs. Admittedly, the octopus is not a local product, but the herbs are fresh.

“We use Mediterranean octopus so it is the best you can get on the market,” said Mr Celentano. “We take the tentacles, skewer them and boil them for two hours on a slow simmer with some herbs, carrots and celery. After it boils we let it sit for 20 minutes. Then we pan sear it in a very hot skillet pan. All the flavours it gets through the boiling process are amazing. It is very tender afterwards because it has been tenderised. It is our most popular appetiser.”

Mr Lim said other restaurants often went wrong with octopus because they tried to buy regular octopus on the market. Little Venice ships theirs in from New York.

Some mains on the new menu include Ravioli Caprese with traditional hand made cheese ravioli with a fresh tomato ragout, basil, garlic and Parmesan cheese or salmone al forno with oven baked salmon fillet, prosecco sauce and a fennel salad, or scaloppine di vitello saltimbocca with escalope of veal lightly floured with prosciutto and fresh sage, among other things.