Dish in Venice, starter of toasted carrot (9)
I believe the answer is:
incentive
'carrot' is the definition.
(carrot and stick)
'dish in venice starter of toasted' is the wordplay.
'dish' indicates anagramming the letters (dish can informally mean to destroy).
'starter of' says to take the initial letters.
The initial letter of 'toasted' is 't'.
'in'+'venice'+'t'='invenicet'
'invenicet' anagrammed gives 'INCENTIVE'.
(Other definitions for incentive that I've seen before include "Motivating payment" , "A motivation" , "carrot" , "Inducement" , "encouragement" .)