A Guide to Eating & Drinking in Venice

From the phone calls mum and I exchanged over the holidays, I learnt that Venice and the surrounding countryside have been particularly foggy this year. Foggy with the sort of fog that prevents from seeing past one's nose, that never burns out, that, like a filter, dresses everything in a very classy though mildly depressing shade of gray. The kind of fog one is scared to drive in, but that, in Venice, makes everything – both real and captured through a lens – just a little bit more magical.

There's something about the winter weather, the light veil of fog, the mist, and the decreased daylight that makes Venice, so evanescent and eerie at times, even more mysterious, elusive, and just heartbreakingly beautiful. In January, the charm is enhanced by its semi-deserted appearance: far from the hustle and bustle of the station and the main attractions, the alleys turn quiet, the quarter's squares bare of people. Walking through Venice's labyrinth of calli, crossing its campi (squares) after sunset on a winter day, you'll likely hear nothing more than the sound of your steps. Though it only lasts for a short while, it will almost feel like you have the whole city to yourself. And that's something one doesn't forget all too easily. 

Many odes to wintry Venice have appeared in major publications lately (Traveler, Jo on Vogue), all suggesting to visit the city right after the Christmas holidays, when things become relatively quieter for a few weeks before the whole Carnival madness picks up. My friend Emiko, a long-time lover of the floating city, concurs. It's a tough choice, and I must say, Venice in winter is gorgeous but it does get terribly cold. Surely the cold provides the perfect excuse to visit more of its many wine bars and cafés and to keep warm while sipping something restoring; however, it'll be hard to enjoy the city much past the early sunset. 

In my mind, nothing beats Venice in autumn, when a strike of luck might gift you with sunny, warm days, and comfortable temperatures to hang out outdoors, hopping from one bacaro (wine bar) to the other, chatting outside with a glass of wine in one hand, a cicchetto (bite-size snack) in the other. If I had to choose a favourite time to be in Venice, it would be November. On a normal weekday in late autumn, most tourists have left, the peak of cruise season is over, and the many day-trippers are back at work. In November, the largely unbearable crowds of tourists have given way to more 'normal' people – commuters, workers, students, residents. This is the time of the year I love paying Venice most of my visits. 

As you might know, I am a Venetian of the countryside. I grew up in a village a few miles inland southwest of the city. And yet, the connection to the city and its proximity has always played a crucial role in my family's daily life. My dad, a retired high school teacher, started his career in a school on the tiny island of San Giorgio, right opposite Saint Mark’s Square. My aunt has been a public employee in Venice for 35 years, and my brother is still a student of Venice’s Ca’ Foscari University. I must have spent hundreds of days in the city, either on my own or with friends, and all in all, I think I know my way around. However, it never ceases to surprise me – there's always an alley I never walked before, a detail I had missed. Similarly, when it comes to food, every visit is an excuse to try and add a new address to my list.

On the wave of the good response to the Padova food guide, I thought a Venice guide would be of some use, too. With this in mind, I spent many days between July and October last year revisiting a few favourite eateries, cafés and food shops around the floating city, snapping some photos around town (mostly with blue skies, incidentally) and writing quite a few notes. I am happy to finally be able to share them all here. The premise of this food guide is, I don't believe there’s still such a thing as Venice’s best-kept secret. When it comes to good spots to eat in Venice, rest assured that every restaurant, every hole in the wall in the city has been written about, reviewed, critiqued, rated, found. You’ll find tourists, few or many, wise or clueless, pretty much wherever you go. And yet neither is this a bad sign, nor does it lessen a place's worth or spoils the atmosphere, or compromise the quality of the food. In these places you'll generally find people interested in understanding the culture of a city and a region through its food; people who know that spaghetti bolognese is not the kind of food one should go for in Venice, if anywhere. And that's good enough already. 

The guide is ordered by the main quarters of the city. You'll find that some places are a bit fancier than others – there's a nice mix for all pockets. Some bacari will seem ridiculously cheap, a few restaurants a bit more dear. I tried my best to strike a balance. I included a few cafés, pastry shops, bakeries, gelaterie, and shops to buy nice food, too, in case you fancy doing some shopping. What I did not include, this time around, are grand names in the San Marco area such as Caffé Florian, Caffé Quadri and Harry’s Bar. You probably know them already – their fame precedes them. These are marvelous old-school Venetian institutions, places where you'll spend quite a bit but where you’ll sip your drink or dine in the most spectacular location, surrounded by frescoes, gold-framed mirrors and Murano glass chandeliers. They are all fantastic for a one-off experience of the Serenissima's grandeur, so if you want to treat yourself, there's no better place to be. Beware, though, that there won't be many locals around you in any of them. 

Anyway, I hope this little guide will help you navigate the confusing food scene of Venice, and will contribute to shake off the terrible reputation it has gained for offering expensive, poor quality food and for emptying the pockets of its unaware visitors. Crowds will always be there, and tacky touristy restaurants, too. However, there are also many peaceful corners to enjoy, and many good meals to be had. I think you'll love this side of Venice a lot. 

A Polenta Fruit Cake from Veneto

Happy new-ish year! Hope you had some lovely, peaceful, restful, glass-clinking, food-filled holidays. Ours were unusual: we spent a big chunk of them at the beach eating avocado on toast in true Aussie spirit while humming Frank Sinatra's Christmas songs. Surreal. 

And now, without even noticing, the holiday season is almonds gone. It was all so understated this year, I barely realised that today is 6th January. In Italy, we celebrated Epifania, the day when the three kings show up on the nativity scene, and also, the day when the Befana – the old witch who used to bring gifts to Italian kids before the whole Santa thing came up – descends into people's fireplaces to fill up stockings. In my sock, I would find the simplest things -mandarins or clementines, a few sweets, perhaps colour pencils. It wasn't as big of a deal as Christmas, but we all liked to keep the tradition alive.

Folklorist rituals happen across Italy on this day, mostly linked to old traditions both Christian and pagan. Pits resembling effigies of the old witch are build in the various villages and then burnt down at dusk for good luck in sight of the year that has just started. People gather around the pit, sipping mulled wine or hot chocolate and eating traditional, regional sweets. In the village where I grew up, the whole burning thing (called brusavecia in dialect) was a social event to which everybody took part – baking something for the buffet, helping mulling the wine, serving people or making sure that the pit stayed under control. It was fun and ultimately, it was one last occasion to celebrate before the holiday season was officially over.



Many traditional sweets accompany Epifania celebrations, either for filling stockings or just for closing yet another big meal. All across Veneto, many make a special kind of cake called pinza. The name is a generic term to describe a cake of humble origins, usually made with day-old bread or polenta loaded with fresh and dry fruits, spices and nuts. Depending on the area of Veneto and the time of the year, it could also contain pumpkin or sweet potato, or even chestnuts.

For Epifania, though,  the classic pinza entails cornmeal (a true Venetian staple) cooked in milk, then sprinkled with fennel seeds (the key ingredient) and as many dry fruits and nuts as one can find – almonds, walnuts, pine nuts, hazelnuts, dry figs, citrus, raisins, and so on. It sounds fancy, it isn't. In fact, it's the best example of a poor man's cake, apt at filling and satisfying with modest ingredients. The texture is soft and flan-like, played off nicely by the crunchiness of the nuts and the slight chewiness of the of the dried fruit. Fennel seeds give it a pleasant anise note, present but not overpowering, while the polenta makes it quintessentially rustic and wholesome. Of course, like many Italian popular recipes, you'll find that there are as many versions of this pinza as there are households. This is just the one I settled on after a few attempts. It doesn't get much more Venetian than this.

Zabaione al Caffé

One of the first exchanges between Jesse and I on the night I landed in Sydney went something like this:

‘Did you bring the big moka pot?’
‘I had to leave it. My bag was overweight’
‘Oooh Val…’
‘Well, we have the little one that you brought…’
‘Mmm’

He wasn’t happy. For the first time in five years, we had to part with our 12-cups Italian stove top cafetière. It was one of the first things we bought together when we first moved into our little flat in Bra. It had travelled with us through Italy and then moved with us to London. It had come along on most of our trips – to France and the Basque Countries, to Croatia, to Mexico. Now, it was sitting in a box in my parents’ garage, wrapped in newspaper, mingled with other possessions of ours, catching the dust. We had to leave it behind in favour of a smaller and lighter 3-cups moka – a later addition to the family, suitable mostly to Sunday after lunch pick-me-ups, or sporadic after-dinner coffee cravings.

The 12-cups moka has been put down to work every single morning at breakfast time since the very start. Making coffee at home in the morning is a ritual we shared from day one. It was a habit that preceded our relationship, that we brought together effortlessly.  Of course, making stove-top moka pot coffee belongs mostly to Italian culture – Jesse was always brewing his cup with a French press before moving to Italy – yet such habit was never questioned by either of us. Living in Italy, the ritual and gestures just made their way into our morning routine quite naturally. The only problem concerned size: the moka is not meant to brew large servings of coffee, but rather make small, espresso-size cups. This wasn’t suitable, in Jesse’s mind, to his morning coffee needs. So out he went, bought a massive moka pot, and started to ignore the serving suggestions completely. Since then, that massive moka pot, designed for 12 Italian-size cups, ended up serving just the two of us at breakfast.

We have always been caffeinated people (less so now, with our smaller moka), and lovers of coffee in general. We know what we like though we don’t call ourselves connoisseurs. We enjoy coffee brewed well, from a machine as much as from a filter; good coffee, with a balanced flavour that doesn’t require milk and sugar. We dislike over-acidic coffees and have many times been turned down by so-called coffee specialists, cussing at the latest coffee snobbery and dreaming of the very many unassuming Italian bars where coffee is cheap and always good. We enjoy indulging in a good espresso with a little cream on top, even if such pleasure lasts only for a few seconds and is consumed standing at the counter. But we also like having the chance to make good coffee at home with our humble moka, despite the fact it often doesn’t allow for the level of flavour subtlety other methods can deliver. Still, the quality of the coffee remains key.

In time, together with quality, we have become increasingly conscious about the ethics surrounding this imported product. In Bra, we had discovered a little Fair Trade shop carrying excellent Ethiopian coffee; we immediately nudged the big brands in its favour. In London, Fair Trade coffee is widely available, and so is organic, so it was easy for us to find good ethical beans. Here in Sydney, the coffee culture is so lively, widespread and at the same time so attentive to quality and origin, that sourcing good coffee is truly a no brainer. Still, there is always room to learn more about a product that we enjoy on a daily basis but that grow so far away.

Flourless Pumpkin Cake

As you might have grasped from the latest updates, I am no longer in Veneto. A few things have changed since the last post, mostly regarding the fact that I put a few miles between me and the homeland. Long story short, I am now in sunny Sydney. 

The plan is to be here for a few months (more on that another time). Meanwhile, I am just enjoying the fact that I'm escaping winter and getting a double dose of summer instead. The seasonality change might twist things around a bit on these pages, mostly because this is meant to be a seasonal recipe journal, and what's in season here now are lovely green peas and crisp asparagus. It feels a bit confusing, admittedly, so I'm trying to take things easy. For now, just to get into the groove of the holiday season and tune in with what's happening in our respective home countries, Jesse and I have been baking quite a few autumnal delights. That, despite the fact that it's very warm and sunny outside my window.

As temperatures soar well into the 40°C, we agreed that we could skip Christmas lunch this year. Our wedding anniversary being right before Christmas, we thought we would celebrate that instead. Thanksgiving, though…He won't let it be missed. No matter where, how, no matter whether traditional or haphazard, the meal shan't be skipped. We celebrated one in Piedmont and a couple in London, and now, we'll do one in Sydney. If everything goes according to plans, dinner will be quite untraditional and on the lighter side. Maybe a potato and green bean salad to go with a roasted bird of some sort. Maybe a starter of spritz with bruschette or crostini to throw some Venetian flair in there, too. As for cake, that's sorted – it'll be this one I'm telling you about now. 

Far from being a modern take on pumpkin pie, this is a cake that dates back to the end of the 1800s. The recipe is included with the name of Torta di Zucca Gialla in Italian food bible Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well by Artusi; I stumbled upon it when Emiko shared it on Food52 about a year ago, and thought about making it ever since. The cake, it turns out, has the marvellous, moist texture of pumpkin pie filling. When you eat it, it feels like biting into a creamy, smooth crustless pumkin pie, except here the flavour and texture of the pumpkin truly takes centre stage, with cinnamon only playing a supporting role. What holds it together, rather than flour, is only a bit of almond meal, which helps keeping the texture on the soft, moist side. To make it less wet, then – as I like mine a tad less custardy/more cakey – I upped the almond meal game a bit, and included the smallest amount of cornstarch to help with excess moisture (the original recipe calls for breadcrumbs). However, if pumpkin pie filling is your thing, leave the cornstarch/breadcrumbs out altogether to enjoy this creamy delight in its purest form. 
 

Padova: A Food Guide

Padova holds a special place in my heart. You might know by now that it's where I lived during my undergraduate years, the first big town where I moved to live on my own – or rather, with other people other than family. I recall some things about courses and classes, but what really stuck with me, sometimes causing high peaks of nostalgia, is the freedom and unruliness of those years; the friendships that were sealed and are still alive and present even at a distance; and the conviviality and the aliveness of the city, so full of youth and students one sometimes forgot that actual people lived there. What I also remember, is the host of great food I had access to without having to drive for miles: the daily vegetable market, the many great pastry shops and bakeries, not to mention the high concentration of bars making tasty sandwiches and serving cheap but excellent spritz. It is not a surprise, then, if I am totally biased when I write about this city. My judgement is somehow fogged by the sweet, boozy memories of such glorious past. Still, Padova has a lot to offer to unbiased visitors, too, with dining and food shopping ranking high on the list of things to do.

Only a 30-minute train ride from Venice, Padova is a city that runs around two things: the prominent University, and commerce. Close to sixty thousand students are currently studying at Padua University, whose foundation as a school of law dates back to 1222 and makes it the fifth oldest in the world. You can still admire the remnants of such glorious, ancient past by walking into the courtyard and under the frescoes vaults of the oldest building belonging to the University, Palazzo del Bo, headquarters of the Law faculty; and in the lush Botanical Gardens, created in the 16th century and still a place of studies for many botanists. You might also notice the high presence of students rushing on their bikes, slaloming cars, buses, trams, pedestrians (for lack of proper bike paths)on their way to the next class on the other side of town. Although often subject to much public criticism – they degrade the city, some say! – the high number of students has always had a good influence on the economy and liveliness of Padova: businesses thrive thanks to the money they pump into the economy of the city in the form of rents and living expenses; and bars and vendors often offer a range of inexpensive, honest, good eats and drinks to cater their cravings.
 

 
 

Padova is not just students, though. Residents enjoy a high standard of living and reflect their buying power on the commerce of the city. Padovani love to dress up and look cool, they love shopping and strolling up and down the city centre on a Saturday, stopping in front of the many sleek boutiques where they can find the latest trends. When it comes to eating, drinking and shopping for food, though, most still enjoy the same small pleasures their parents did. Impeccably dressed couples taking a break from their shopping to grab an ombra of wine (a small glass of house wine, that is) and a panino with porchetta, standing at the counter of a scruffy-looking osteria, won't be such an unusual sight; the same goes with spotting them queuing, or trying to, in front of the folparo, ready for their dose of folpetti (baby octopus). Likewise, most will still shop in the independent food businesses that have become institutions in the city, calling the vendors by name and trusting their weekly recommendations. 
 

This diverse demand sums up in a wide range or pretty great food options, all fairly concentrated in the heart of the city. You’ll find a bit of everything, from real street food institutions alongside bars feeding the hungry with panini or tramezzini washed down by spritz, to traditional osterie that offer more substantial dishes linked to the typical flavours and recipes of the province. What is more, there is no shortage of good spots to do some food shopping, so you get the chance take a taste of the city home and savour it without rush. I recently visited Padova again to re-write and confirm my list of favourite places to eat drink and shop, most of which are still fairly undiscovered gems only known to locals – you'll find them all below. At the bottom, I also listed some beautiful things to see while you’re at it, including a few key monuments and museums. I hope it’ll help you navigate the city and tempt you to visit it next time you find yourself in the area. It’s well worth your time.