Eat like a local in Venice, Italy
Read More in: EUROPE, Euros, Italian Restaurants, Italy, Travel Tips, restaurants, travel, travel secrets
20
Feb
“On this night, however, we fell, quite by chance, into Polpo, a relatively new restaurant that appeared to be some kind of tapas bar, was lively and not too pricey – yes, this would do…
It was an inspired choice. It turns out we weren’t eating tapas (“We don’t use the T-word here,” said the waiter) but cichèti, small snacks unique to the bars of Venice…
Our conversation, usually dominated by football, turned to the tenderness of sliced flank steak and the sweet softness of the sensational cuttlefish cooked in its own ink…
On more than 20 visits to Venice, Polpo owner Russell Norman has trawled the back-street bàcari, the small bars where locals pop in for a glass of wine and a snack, to find inspiration for Polpo. He is the right man to talk to about where to eat in what he calls “one of the world’s worst destinations for food lovers”.
“Avoid all the crappy tourist places,” is Norman’s advice, “anywhere with the menu in six languages stuck in the window or, worse still, one with photographs of lurid pizzas.
“But there is still a side of Venice which is alive and isn’t Disneyland, and it’s best typified by the bàcari.”
With those words ringing in my ears, and a list of his favourite bàcari in my pocket, I headed off for La Serenissima.
A bar crawl, or giro di òmbre, is the best way to try Venice’s bàcari, popping into each for a cichèti and accompanying òmbra (small glass of wine). And a good place to start was Ca’ d’Oro – Alla Vedova (Cannaregio 3912, Ramo Ca’ d’Oro), one of the best-known bàcari, on the Strada Nuova, well away from the city’s touristy hub. On a Friday night it was packed with punters lingering around the bar, waiting for the hot polpette (pork rissoles) to emerge from the kitchen. These delicious balls of salty, finely minced pork (the inspiration for the meatballs at Polpo) were snapped up within seconds of hitting the old marble bar counter, washed down by unbottled Veneto red in tiny glasses.
Around the corner is La Cantina (Cannaregio 3689, Campo San Felice) which, like Polpo, has taken the simple cichèto to another level with its freshly prepared, imaginative dishes. On the bar was a tray of oysters on ice (€9 for six), which the barman shucked to order, behind it a counter of fresh fish and an ancient hand-operated slicer for the charcuterie, and on the blackboard around 30 wines available by the glass. But, like all bàcari, La Cantina didn’t run to anything as tourist-friendly as a menu. When I asked for one, the barman replied, “It’s me!”
Raw fish is a speciality, and my trio of minced salmon, lightly seared tuna with finely chopped cucumber and sea bass (€2 each) with tomatoes, prepared right in front of me, were melt-in-the-mouth fresh – the best thing I ate in Venice. ” (via guardian.co.uk ) by Gavin McOwan
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