Dining in Venice

Dining experiences in Venice can be hit or miss. I've experienced many misses when trying restaurants alongside well trodden tourist thoroughfares, even though some hits have been had on the same streets. My general approach is to:

1. Avoid restaurants that offer regional foods from other areas of Italy, as they are trying for the tourist trade and not depending on repeat business, so the quality and value of their food is not as much of an issue as it would be for a restaurant depending on locals for support. Even though Ai Tre Archi offers Bistecca Fiorentina, their menu is filled with Venetian favorites, with a heavy emphasis on seafood and all their pasta is hand made.

2. Look for restaurants off the beaten path for good local food and do a little research before your trip to discover exactly what the regional foods are in the Veneto. La Aciugheta was one restaurant that had several unusual dishes that were laced with spices we do not typically associate with Italian food. I couldn't help but think of Marco Polo as I read their menu, and the influence that the spice trade brought to the Western World. I wondered if these were centuries old recipes.

3. Before the E.U formed, you could just go to a restaurant that didn't have a multi language menu, but nowadays most restaurants will have English, German, French and Spanish, besides Italian, on their menus. I'd definitely try the restaurants that didn't. That's how I found La Perla Pizzeria There was no English on the menu, so I just had to try it. Also it was priced for locals as their prices were so much lower than what I had seen at other restaurants that day.

4. When in doubt, order fish. The fish market in Venice is world famous and the local cuisine is dominated by seafood.

Here a few of my favorites:

  Trattoria Ca D'Oro

  Vini Da Gigio
 Osteria Al Bomba  
 Al Mascaron

Sleeping in Venice

Ever since our 2^nd trip to Venice, we have been going to Locanda Di Orsaria. We arrived in Venice on our honeymoon without a booking, and as we stood in line at the hotel kiosk in the train station, we were approached by someone trying to lure tourists to Hotel Dolomiti around the corner. We refused the offer of a room for $75 until we kept hearing people ahead of us in line asking if they had something cheaper than $125. Hotel Dolomiti was sounding better and better, so we relented and walked around the corner. It was a decent place and we enjoyed our stay there.

We looked for it again when we were planning another visit but it was closed at that time of year and we ended up canceling plans for Venice entirely. On our 2^nd trip we successfully booked Hotel Dolomiti, but after the first night we needed to find another hotel, and fast. I spent the entire night trying to avoid being eaten alive by mosquitoes. It was very warm, and the sheet covering my head, to avoid dive bombing and buzzing by mosquitoes, made me so uncomfortably hot I couldn’t sleep at all. While my husband strolled around the following morning, I was on a quest to find another room. I found it directly across the street at Locanda Di Orsaria. When I saw the room and noticed window screens I knew I had found the right place. I have never looked back. Here are some photos of this lovely hotel:

  

 

There are two types of rooms, standard and superior. If you need to feel like a princess, try the superior rooms as seen in the photos above. Personally, I like the old fashioned appearance of the standard rooms, and you can book a family room for 4 with that class. Prices have risen over the years and this has become a highly sought after hotel. I count myself lucky to be able to afford it from time to time.

 

When I first booked the hotel, they didn't have a website and you could get a discount for cash. You could also opt out of breakfast to reduce the room price by a small amount. There is no longer an opt out for breakfast, but it's a great way to start your day, so why not indulge yourself? The lattes come in a bowl the way you see them served in France.

 

Locanda Di Orsaria's Website

The Markets of Cannaregio

Rizzo Pane is a true brick and mortar market on Rio Tera San Leonardo and is much more than it appears from the front. I especially like it because it’s not part of a large chain. As you walk in there is a bakery to the left and a section devoted to wine on the right. Sounds like the start of a picnic. As you move towards the back you find all sorts of gourmet delights packed in jars including olives, olive oils, antipasti, tuna and anchovies wrapped around capers soaked in olive oil, but as you proceed through that area and beyond the candy section you find a very large delicatessen with a decent variety of local cheeses and cold cuts, as well as some imported from other areas of Italy.

Also on the Rio Tera San Leonardo is the daily mercato where vendors sell their fresh produce. This makes it clear that Cannaregio is a vibrant neighborhood filled with thousands of residents and not just tourists passing through on their way to San Marco. This is the market where I first saw Fragolino grapes that are pressed for the Venetian wine of the same name. Fragolino in Italian means strawberry and these dark dessert grapes do indeed taste like strawberries.

The produce was beautifully manicured and displayed. Those are artichoke hearts in the bottom right photo. The vendors keep themselves busy by cleaning the artichokes and selling only the hearts. That seems like such a waste, since the leaves are so good on their own and stems can also be eaten, but having them pre-cleaned does have its appeal.

Cannaregio

 

The furthest sestiere from St Mark’s, Cannaregio is overlooked by many visitors unless they’re leaving the train station and jumping on a vaporetto there for other parts of “La Serenissima”, the Most Serene Republic of Venice. Let’s just keep it our little secret that this is one of the most authentic areas of town with the biggest transportation hub. I consider it the real Venice and have walked the many side streets as far away from the main thoroughfares as possible, to discover the serenity that few visitors ever find.

Along with the thousands of workers who live in Maestre, tourists pour out of the Mussolini modern, Santa Lucia train station every day. It can be a madhouse. You may find yourself in a crush of people, if you come during commute hours. The first time I did that my heart sank at the thought of wall to wall crowds impeding my natural walking speed. Looking left they see the Ponte Degli Scalzi Bridge that is only one of three to span the Grand Canal. Many of them cross that bridge walking into San Polo to ultimately get to the Rialto Bridge and San Marco. The Scalzi looks rather anemic in this photo, but it’s very wide with steps going up one side and down the other.

For those tourists who hop one of the many vaporetti docked outside the train station, this is the photo op they are missing. On my very first trip to Venice I took a photo here and over the intervening years thought it had been taken at the Rialto Bridge. After a long absence, I revisited the Rialto and realized it would have been almost impossible to take a photo there because it’s lined with shops. There are no gondolas in this photo and the sun isn’t setting, but I hope to repeat that photo one day.

There is so much hustle and bustle outside the station, the Scalzi Church next door can easily get overlooked. It’s quite a little gem inside and it took me 5 visits to Venice before I finally went in, even though my favorite hotel is just around the corner. The former monastery behind it has been converted into a 4 star hotel, but I prefer the small family run operation just across the street.

Pasticceria Martini in Venice

This decades old pasticceria has a sentimental attachment for me, since we first discovered it on our honeymoon. It’s located just over the Ponte Guglie as you walk along the Lista di Spagna towards San Marco. To keep hotel costs down, we opted out of breakfast and wandered around looking for just such a place. You can order pastries to go, or stand at the counter to eat them and drink your cappucino or espresso like a Venetian would. Walk in and as old Italian tradition dictates, make your selection, pay for it and then you can start your day off right.

The variety of pastry is more than you would expect in such a small shop. They have biscotti, palmiers, mini tarts, cream puffs, an assortment of filled pastries, and in the lower photo we can see French custard filled choux pastries, chocolate mousse and tiramisu. These were only in one case, about 1/6th of what they were offering that day. The pastry is baked fresh daily and I have proof.

The photo on the left shows pastry dough in progress by a pastry chef young enough to be working there for many years to come. Lights on the ovens assure us that there are wonderful treats baking right there in the pasticceria. The young American on the right, a non coffee drinker, just had his first espresso and liked it; a good indication as to the quality of the coffee.

A traditional cornmeal biscotto, a fragipane tart and two chocolate mousse rounded out the morning for us. Did I mention the cappucino comes with whipped cream?

Rio Terà San Leonardo 1302 Cannaregio Venice 041 71 73 75

Directions

My all time favorite travel writer, Stephen Birnbaum, would always include a chapter on "Directions" that would give you wonderful advice for exploring off the beaten path areas near famous travel destinations. This post title is an homage to him, but is not for the same purpose; it's meant to keep you moving from one point to another in Venice. It is also meant to create hope and inspire confidence in those travelers who will invariably get lost there. Although I would always encourage visitors to Venice to carry a guidebook with maps, you will never get truly lost in this city. After all, it is essentially an island, if you count all the little bridges connecting all the small islands one to another.

  

   

     

Even with all the twists and turns, dead ends and narrow, almost foreboding, covered walkways; you are either going in one direction or the other from the top of the island to almost the bottom. Either way, you'll end up in Venice. Having the sun out and being able to determine which way is south can give the map impaired a slight sense of security, but only if they know the general layout to begin with.

  

You have two choices, you may walk toward Piazzale Roma where the large car park and buses leaving for outlaying areas are, with the train station located nearby, or you can walk toward San Marco, the major tourist hub where you will find the cathedral and the grand Piazza San Marco. Regardless of your choice, you will find fascinating sights and even though you may end up walking in circles a few times, you will eventually find your destination. So look for the "Per San Marco" and "Per Piazzale Roma" signs on buildings. Street names will also be written on corner buildings for those people using maps.