Venice has it all: romance, history, culture…… but what about the food? Here’s a list of some of favourites.
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- OSTERIA ALLE TESTIERE
- A market-to-table restaurant in the purest sense of the expression. You’ll spot the chef, Bruno, at Rialto market in the morning, pointing out the ingredients he wants delivered to the restaurant that day. On the menu there might be capelunghe, the tiniest razor clams you’ve ever seen, cooked very simply with garlic, parsley, salt and olive oil. This isn’t about a chef showing off or trying to reinvent anything. One of my favourite dishes here is John Dory with pink peppercorns, orange, and fine herbs.’
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- PARADISO PERDUTO
- Here you’ll find students and university professors, poets and actors, musicians and philosophers. Which might sound dreadfully pretentious, but it’s not. It’s buzzy and raucous and chaotic, and the proprietor, Maurizio, is a local legend. It’s a full-on, non-stop party from Thursday over the weekend, and only ends when the police arrive on Monday morning. The real star is the cacio e pepe which is made on a trolley by your table. Macaroni-like tubes of spaghetti are added to a 40kg wheel of Pecorino until the pasta becomes coated with the cheese. The waiter then crushes whole peppercorns in a big pestle and mortar, all right under your nose. Book ahead.
- TRATTORIA ANTICHE CARAMPANE
- This is a family-run place in the red-light district and I love it. It’s very busy, and always full of locals, which means the language being spoken isn’t Italian, it’s Venetian. The dishes they serve are proudly Venetian too. As soon as you arrive they’ll deliver little cones made out of menu paper, filled with deep-fried, lightly battered schie– tiny shrimp from the lagoon which are deliciously crispy and salty. One of the best dishes is tagliolini, an extra-thin tagliatelle, with a sauce called cassopipa, a peasant dish made from fish scraps spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves.
- AL COVO
- This is a wonderful experience, and one that is more firmly on the international map. What you get here (unlike some of the other spots I’ve mentioned) is probably the best welcome in the city. It’s run by Caesar and his American wife Diane, and while the service is incredibly slick, the cooking is genuinely Venetian. They serve an amazing traditional bigoli, a slightly fat wholewheat spaghetti served with a very simple anchovy-and-onion sauce.
