Venice Dining

Day 1

Le Cafe - After our long journey to Venice, our hosts suggested the quiet tranquility of Piazza San Stefano over the pigeons, tourists and 15 Euro drinks in Piazza San Marco. Le Cafe is one of several restaurants ringing the Piazza San Stefano, but as it was packed to the gills with Venetians, we were instantly drawn to it. We grabbed a candle lit table for two and settled into a few glasses of Prosecco and an order of Bruschetta Veneziana (mozzarella and anchovies on crostini, tossed under the broiler). The pairing worked well enough and the only knock on the bruschetta is that the anchovies came from a tin and way overpowered the mozzarella. When I try to recreate this at home, I will substitute milder, fresh white anchovies. Anchovies or not, the food is really an afterthought here - go for the quiet, romantic setting and watch Venetians go about their daily lives as you begin to ease into their rhythm of life.

Fiaschetteria Toscana - Several people recommended this place to me, but I couldn't find out very much about it online. When I asked our host what he thought of the place, he said, "it is very special - when the boss, my Father, is in town - this is where I take him." That was all I needed to hear.

After a relaxing stroll past the Rialto Bridge, we grabbed a cup of coffee to warm up and then headed to our reservation at Fiaschetteria Toscana. We were led to a quiet dining room upstairs where our waiter (Alberto) walked us through the menu. We opted for Tagliolini Al Tartufo, Monkfish in a saffron sauce and Serenissima (a combination of fried vegetables and fish). We paired these with a split of Soave (a good pairing) and a split of Gattinara (far too tannic for these dishes).

The Tagliolini Al Tartufo arrived first - a delicate mound of al dente pasta (think Raman noodles) drizzled in olive oil and tossed with white truffles. It was a simple, honest, homage to the white truffles (which, as luck would have it, were in season for our entire trip). Despite the simplicity of so few ingredients, the heady truffle fumes made this a very rich dish, which we were happy to share. It would have been hard for one person to eat the entire dish (though I would have liked to try).

Next, we tucked into the monkfish and the serenissima. The monkfish was amongst the freshest I have ever had and the saffron sauce was more like olive oil perfumed with saffron - very light and clean. This was served with what I will call an artichoke hash - a mixture of artichokes, tomatoes and mushrooms. The real star of the show, however, was the serenissima. It was a blend of fried calamari, shrimp, zucchini, eggplant and carrots. The consistency of the fried items was amazing. They were lightly coated in a salty batter - so lightly coated that they resembled that fine coating of sand and sea water that gathers on the windshield of your car when you park overnight near the beach. Inside, everything was just barely cooked - the seafood remained tender and the vegetables each retained their unique flavors.

For dessert, we had an apple tart with caramel ice cream. This was one of the last desserts we ate in all of Italy (excluding gelato). It was a perfectly lovely tart (sweet dough, evenly caramelized apples, not too sweet - just the sugar in the apples themselves, etc.), but we found that in general, the rest of the meal so far overshadows the desserts in Italy, that it was an anticlimactic course upon which to end. It was far better to just have a cheese course or coffee (or both) and grab a gelato on the way home.

Day 2

[________ it kills me that I can't remember the name of this place, but from the Academia, on your way to the Peggy Guggenheim, as you cross the bridge into Campo San Vio, this place is on the corner - with a wine barrel outside the door and an extensive list of wines by the glass] - After a busy morning that included a tour of Basilica San Marco, the Fenice opera house and a walk over the Academia bridge to visit the Peggy Guggenheim museum, we needed a place to cool our heels for a bit. We stumbled into this little place and sat down at the banquet that runs the length of the restaurant. The food was pretty good - especially considering the proximity to so many tourist destinations.

We shared a mammoth proscuitto and cheese panini and then a composed salad of arugula, tuna, artichokes, olives and tomatoes. I can't say that I would go out of my way to eat there again, but that is precisely the point - if you are visiting the Peggy Guggenheim or the Academia, you are already in the neighborhood and you would be hard pressed to do better. Also, embrace the semi-communal seating - order a carafe of wine and meet your neighbors - we were between a lovely British couple who gave us their passes to the Correo museum and an Australian Art Dealer just in town for the biennial, who had some interesting opinions of the US art market.

VizioVirtu - What can I say? Nestled about halfway between the Academia gallery and the Rialto bridge is this lovely little temple of decadence. After touring the Academia gallery, we set out to wander the residential streets of the Dorsoduro, more or less heading towards Santa Croce and the Rialto markets. Down a narrow side street, my wife suddenly yanked my arm, pointed to VizioVirtu's window and said, "Chocolateria translates in every language." Here again, we found ourselves amongst a predominantly Venetian crowd. People lined the L-shaped counter two and three deep, barking out orders for every size, shape and color of chocolate confection you can imagine. We had decided to just get a little bit of white chocolate macadamia bark and perhaps some dark chocolate espresso bean bark, when we noticed the glowing brass orb on the counter at the end of the bar. Our eyes nearly popped out of our heads as this Willy Wonka-esque scene was compounded by the thickest, richest, gooey-est hot chocolate oozing out of the brass vessel and into Styrofoam "to go" cups. We ordered the bark - as well as a cup of chocolate to share.

Even though the hot chocolate only filled about half of the 12oz cup, it weighed a ton. This dense, dark chocolate was barely drinkable - it eased its way down the cup towards your mouth like molasses dripping off a spoon. The taste was an explosion of pure chocolate. We nursed the cup as we continued our walk and only stopped licking the container when we realized that we had stumbled onto Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari (don't you just love how in Venice, there is a surprise waiting around every corner?).

Later that night, we tasted the two barks - both were brilliant. The white chocolate was silky smooth and an excellent medium for the very fresh macadamia nuts. The dark chocolate and espresso bean bark was like de-constructed chocolate covered espresso beans. It was a little intense on its own, but would have been sinful with a glass of port.

Enoteca Mascareta - On our way to dinner, our host suggested we stop into his friend's Enoteca, Mascareta. When we arrived, it was standing room only, with people spilled out into the alley outside. They had dozens of bottles - many from the Veneto - open for tasting and some beautiful plates of antipasto and oysters on the half shell parading by. We were about to have a large meal, so we opted for just two glasses of Bardolino. It was a lovely, light, playful version - the dominant impression was cherries - and on the whole, it was superior to any that I have had here in the States (not that I am a big Bardolino drinker).

While we were there, we witnessed the spectacle of the proprietor teaching one of the patrons how to open a bottle of Prosecco with a sword. Everyone was a bit tipsy, so we took a big step back and squinted as he knocked the neck of the bottle - cork and wire basked still intact - clear across the bar. What a hoot!

Alle Testiere - This was mentioned by some as "the best restaurant in Venice." Never one to trust statements like that, I again ran traps with our host. When I asked him his impression, he smiled, took off his glasses (more for dramatic effect than anything) and said, "it is the best - it is where I gave my wife the ring." Sold.

This restaurant is tiny - even by Venetian standards - with less than a dozen tables and a maximum seating capacity of maybe 20 or so.

I also didn't see any menus. The waiter tells you what they have that evening and makes recommendations. We opted to start with Raw Scampi (shrimp) for my wife and their famous Razor Clams for me. We paired these with a bottle of Soave Classico and told the waiter we would order more as we went.

The shrimp were amazing. Raw, head-on shrimp the likes of which you would be lucky to see in a sushi restaurant. They were peeled and served with thin slices of strawberries and a garnish of olive oil and sea salt. The meat was sweet, buttery and so fresh that you barely had to chew. The strawberries were an unexpected, but very welcome addition to the dish. When eaten together, the tartness in the strawberries cut the opulence of the shrimp.

The razor clams were equally good. Having never had them, I wasn't sure what to expect. Picture steamers, whose shells are long and thin and look like the blade of a straight razor. Inside, the meat is sweet, almost nutty and tender as can be. You would never place these succulent morsels in the same Species as those chewy, salty littlenecks we tend to steam. They were served in a pile, with no garnish whatsoever - the flavor didn't need any fancy presentation or accompaniment.

The Soave Classico held up well here. It was a darker yellow, older, wine than most of the Soave you see in Venice and had enough acidity and backbone to cut through the fatty richness of the shrimp and clams. We called the waiter over and ordered plates of Pumpkin Gnocchi and Seared tuna to share.

They split the pumpkin gnocchi order into two for us and brought it out as our next course. The gnocchi were perfectly cooked, tender, almost chewy morsels, plated with chunks of pumpkin and tossed in a sage butter. There was nothing too crazy here - pumpkin/pasta/sage butter is a time honored and universal combination of autumnal flavors. What was remarkable, however, was the combination of the extreme sweetness of the pumpkin and the herbal flourish of the sage. This was amongst the freshest sage I had ever tasted and would have easily dominated the dish, were it not for the fact that the pumpkin was so amazingly sweet. I didn't see the dish prepared, but I suspect the chef slow roasted the pumpkin (as one would do with fresh beets) to concentrate the flavors, then cut the tender flesh into bite sizes roughly equal to the size of the gnocchi.

After the gnocchi, came a plate of Seared Tuna. This arrived as a large cube of tuna, lightly seared on the outside, then thinly sliced to reveal beautiful, rare, "red Jell-O" colored meat inside. This was served with a balsamic reduction and more fresh strawberries. Strawberries and "balsamic syrup" (what you get if you cook down your balsamic vinegar) is a classic pairing, but I had never tried them with raw tuna. It actually worked very well and the tuna was sinfully fresh. By now, the Soave had given up (the balsamic was just too much for it), so we ordered two glasses of Valpolicella to finish our tuna.

Afterwards, we opted out of dessert and decided instead to share a cheese course. For a restaurant this tiny, they had a surprisingly large variety of cheeses, which they served with bread and a mostardi di fruta of sorts. Of the three cheeses that we sampled, all were good, but the one that really stood out was a blue cheese from Chianti. This was a deeply veined, pungent, almost grainy blue very much in the spirit of a Cabrales. It rendered the poor Valpolicella about as flavorful as diluted grape juice, but I loved every last bite of it.

This was truly an amazing dining experience and one I would recommend to anyone who is going to Venice. At around 120 Euro, it was also very reasonably priced.

Day 3

We awoke on Day 3 to a total rainout. Luckily, we had already covered much of our Venice itinerary and had very little planned, except a 10:45 "Secret Itinerary" tour of the Dogge's Palace. We ended up touring the Dogge's Palace until 2:30, at which point, we were completely famished.

Il Grotto - Owing to our extreme hunger and the driving rain, we were limited to eating in the area of Piazza San Marco - something we had been trying to avoid. We wandered into this little pizza joint attached to the restaurant Angelo, just a few blocks off the Piazza. It was warm and smelled of a wood fired oven and fresh basil, so we decided to stay. We ordered two pizzas - Quattro Stagione and Margherita. Both were very good, with the quattro stagione arriving in four quadrants, each with its own topping: roasted red pepper, artichokes, mushrooms and ham. After the pizza and a half bottle of the house red, we ordered coffee and then the waiter brought my wife a slice of apricot tart - gratis. This was both a lovely gesture (I think he felt sorry for us - we looked like drowned rats when we stumbled in) and an amazing pastry. The tart was some deliciously rich, apricot preserve sandwiched between layers of thick, sweet, buttery pastry dough. When we complimented the waiter, he admitted that the same chef that made the tart also made the preserves from scratch.

After a trip back to our hotel to pack our bags, nap and shower, we headed out to a few local bars before dinner.

Just across the Grand Canal, near the Rialto markets, we stopped in for some Prosecco at a bar whose name I forget, but that had a picture of a mermaid on its sign. We were easily the only English speakers in the bar and local workmen kept coming through to pick up dinner on their way home.

A few blocks away, we stopped into another local watering hole for some Lambrusco. I believe the place was called "The Devil and the Priest" or something like that (the sign had a picture of a devil and a priest on it). This was a very cute place that looked to have some decent food as well. On this particular evening, the crowd was mostly young Venetian couples and their children (strollers were double parked in the alley outside).

Trattoria alla Madonna - Just after 7:00, we made our way to Trattoria alla Madonna. They do not take reservations and we had been warned that often by 7:20 they are full to capacity. This restaurant was described as a locals-only place, despite its location just a few blocks from the Rialto bridge. Our hostess admitted that, "tourists have found out about it," but encouraged us to go anyway.

When you walk in, there is a glorious fish display, full of every kind of sea-dweller imaginable. We had already been advised to order the Gnocchi in red sauce and the Spaghetti with Black Squid, but we perused the menu for a fish dish. Finally, we gave up and asked our waiter what was the best fish they had. When he recommended John Dory, I paused, but then felt compelled to take his advice (imagine the insult at asking his advice and then ignoring it?).

The gnocchi were so tender that they stuck to the roof of your mouth. My wife was nearly in tears as she remarked that this was the sign of authentic gnocchi - the kind her Grandmother used to make. The red sauce was a straightforward affair - no meat, etc. - just very fresh, simple tomato sauce.

The spaghetti with black squid was as advertised - a plate of spaghetti covered with chunks of squid and a thick, rich, salty ink-based sauce. In addition to being a delightful flavor - a heady richness that is hard to find elsewhere in nature - it turned every diner's teeth and lips black. The couple next to us was on their honeymoon and couldn’t resist taking photos of each other with black mouths.

We probably should have stopped there. The two pasta dishes really shined, but the John Dory was a tremendous flop. It arrived in a heavy egg batter, fried and garnished with lemon. Maybe the waited mistook us for Brits, but this fish belonged wrapped in newsprint on the banks of the Thames, not on a plate in a restaurant in Venice. Inside, the fish was fresh and expertly cooked, but it was about as out of place as if he had recommended the cheeseburger.

We skipped dessert and stopped for some gelato on our way home - sad to say goodbye to Venice, but also eager for the sights and flavors of Tuscany.