The plates that define Venice: what they are, and where to eat the canonical version.
The plates that define Venice. what they are, where they came from, and where to eat the canonical version.
Fried sardines marinated with caramelised onions, raisins, pinenuts and white wine vinegar, served at room temperature. The canonical Venetian cicchetto.
Where: Cantina Do Mori, Osteria All'Arco, Antiche Carampane, Trattoria alla Madonna, Vini da Gigio
Price: EUR 3-5 per cicchetto, EUR 12-18 as a starter
Whole-wheat thick-cut spaghetti dressed with a slow-cooked onion and anchovy sauce. The canonical Venetian meatless pasta, served on lean-Friday and Christmas Eve.
Where: Vini da Gigio, Osteria Anice Stellato, Antiche Carampane, Trattoria Bar Pontini, Osteria alle Testiere
Price: EUR 14-22
Whipped salt cod with olive oil and parsley, served on polenta crostini. The canonical Venetian cicchetto, on every bacaro counter from November through Easter.
Where: Cantina Do Mori, Osteria All'Arco, Antiche Carampane, Vini da Gigio, Osteria alle Testiere
Price: EUR 2.50-4 per cicchetto
Calf liver sliced thin and slow-cooked with onions in butter and white wine. The canonical Venetian secondo, served on polenta bianca.
Where: Vini da Gigio, Trattoria alla Madonna, Antiche Carampane, Bistrot de Venise, Osteria Anice Stellato
Price: EUR 16-26
A risotto-soup hybrid of rice and fresh spring peas, traditionally served to the Doge on St Mark's Day (25 April). Loose, soupy, never stiff.
Where: Vini da Gigio, Osteria Anice Stellato, Trattoria alla Madonna, Osteria alle Testiere, Bistrot de Venise
Price: EUR 12-18
Lagoon soft-shell crabs caught during their April-May molt, dredged in flour and deep-fried whole. The most prized seasonal Venetian dish.
Where: Osteria All'Arco, Antiche Carampane, Cantina Do Spade, Trattoria al Gatto Nero, Vini da Gigio
Price: EUR 30-45 per portion
Black-as-ink risotto coloured with cuttlefish sac, with chunks of stewed cuttlefish folded in. The canonical inky Venetian rice dish.
Where: Trattoria alla Madonna, Vini da Gigio, Trattoria al Gatto Nero, Osteria Anice Stellato, Antiche Carampane
Price: EUR 16-26
A paper cone or platter of mixed deep-fried lagoon fish: schie, calamari, prawns, sole, sometimes whitebait. The canonical Venetian fish supper.
Where: Osteria Vecio Fritolin, Trattoria alla Madonna, Antiche Carampane, Trattoria Corte Sconta, Trattoria al Gatto Nero
Price: EUR 18-30
Beef sliced paper-thin, served raw with a mustard-mayonnaise drizzle. Invented at Harry's Bar in 1950 and now a global classic.
Where: Harry's Bar, Bistrot de Venise, Met Restaurant, Bar Longhi, Locanda Cipriani
Price: EUR 25-45
White peach puree topped with Prosecco. Invented at Harry's Bar in 1948, the canonical Venetian cocktail and the city's most famous drink.
Where: Harry's Bar, Bar Longhi, Caffe Florian, Locanda Cipriani, Grancaffe Quadri
Price: EUR 22 at Harry's Bar, EUR 12-18 elsewhere
Fried sardines marinated with caramelised onions, raisins, pinenuts and white wine vinegar, served at room temperature. The canonical Venetian cicchetto.
History: Sarde in saor traces back to the 14th-century Venetian Republic's spice-trade preservation methods. Sailors needed a way to keep fried fish during long Mediterranean voyages; the sweet-and-sour onion-vinegar marinade pickled the fish and added the raisins and pinenuts that signalled wealth from the Levant trade routes. The dish is on every bacaro counter and every osteria carte to this day; it is to Venice what bouillabaisse is to Marseille. The 14th-century cookbook Libro per cuoco of the Anonimo Veneziano contains the earliest written recipe.
Where to try it: Cantina Do Mori, Osteria All'Arco, Antiche Carampane, Trattoria alla Madonna, Vini da Gigio
Watch out for: Fish, Sulphites
Whole-wheat thick-cut spaghetti dressed with a slow-cooked onion and anchovy sauce. The canonical Venetian meatless pasta, served on lean-Friday and Christmas Eve.
History: Bigoli is the whole-wheat pasta extruded through a brass torchio (press) that gives it its rough texture and bite. The in salsa preparation, onions slowly melted into a paste with salted anchovies, was the canonical lean-day dish, traditionally served on Ash Wednesday, Good Friday and Christmas Eve. The dish has no tomato, no garlic, no cheese, just onion, anchovy and olive oil reduced to a near-confit. It survives unchanged at every traditional Venetian trattoria and is on the menu at Vini da Gigio, Anice Stellato and Antiche Carampane.
Where to try it: Vini da Gigio, Osteria Anice Stellato, Antiche Carampane, Trattoria Bar Pontini, Osteria alle Testiere
Watch out for: Gluten, Fish
Whipped salt cod with olive oil and parsley, served on polenta crostini. The canonical Venetian cicchetto, on every bacaro counter from November through Easter.
History: Baccala mantecato is Venice's interpretation of dried stockfish, brought back from Norway by Venetian merchant Pietro Querini after his 1432 shipwreck on the Lofoten Islands. The Venetians whip the soaked-and-cooked salt cod with olive oil into a pale emulsion (the mantecatura), the texture of a thick aioli. Served traditionally on grilled polenta crostini, it is the canonical winter cicchetto from November through Easter. Despite the name (baccala in Italian usually means salt cod), Venetians use stockfish (dried, not salted) for this dish, the legacy of the Querini trade route.
Where to try it: Cantina Do Mori, Osteria All'Arco, Antiche Carampane, Vini da Gigio, Osteria alle Testiere
Watch out for: Fish
Calf liver sliced thin and slow-cooked with onions in butter and white wine. The canonical Venetian secondo, served on polenta bianca.
History: Fegato alla veneziana is the Venetian Republic's answer to the Roman frattaglie tradition: thin-sliced calf liver, melted onions, butter and white wine, served on white polenta. The dish appears in 14th-century Anonimo Veneziano manuscripts, and the onions-and-liver combination was a way to use the offal of the cattle slaughtered for the Republic's salumi trade. The polenta bianca (white corn) is the canonical accompaniment, not yellow. It is still on the menu at every traditional Venetian trattoria from Vini da Gigio to Antiche Carampane.
Where to try it: Vini da Gigio, Trattoria alla Madonna, Antiche Carampane, Bistrot de Venise, Osteria Anice Stellato
Watch out for: Dairy
A risotto-soup hybrid of rice and fresh spring peas, traditionally served to the Doge on St Mark's Day (25 April). Loose, soupy, never stiff.
History: Risi e bisi is the canonical Venetian Republic dish, traditionally served to the Doge in the Doge's Palace on the Feast of St Mark (25 April) using the first peas of spring. The texture is risotto-but-looser, somewhere between a soup and a risotto, made with the pea pods reduced to a broth (the canonical version uses both pods and peas). It is on the menu at every spring carte from Vini da Gigio to Anice Stellato, and the proverbial Venetian saying goes that it should be ne troppo brodoso ne troppo asciutto (neither too soupy nor too dry).
Where to try it: Vini da Gigio, Osteria Anice Stellato, Trattoria alla Madonna, Osteria alle Testiere, Bistrot de Venise
Watch out for: Dairy
Lagoon soft-shell crabs caught during their April-May molt, dredged in flour and deep-fried whole. The most prized seasonal Venetian dish.
History: Moeche are the male lagoon shore crabs caught during the few weeks each spring when they shed their hard shell and grow a new one, leaving them entirely soft-shelled and edible whole. The fishermen of Burano and Chioggia spend April and May watching for the moeca window, which lasts roughly 6 weeks; the crabs are sold the same day at Rialto Pescheria. The canonical preparation soaks the live crabs in beaten egg for 30 minutes (they eat the egg before being killed), then deep-fries them whole. The result is a sweet-fleshed nugget eaten whole, shell and all.
Where to try it: Osteria All'Arco, Antiche Carampane, Cantina Do Spade, Trattoria al Gatto Nero, Vini da Gigio
Watch out for: Shellfish, Gluten
Black-as-ink risotto coloured with cuttlefish sac, with chunks of stewed cuttlefish folded in. The canonical inky Venetian rice dish.
History: Risotto al nero di seppia is the canonical Venetian black-rice dish, coloured by the cuttlefish (seppia) ink sac and folded with the stewed cuttlefish meat. The dish is on every Venetian and lagoon-island trattoria menu and is one of the city's three canonical risotti (alongside risi e bisi and risotto di go). The cuttlefish is gently stewed in white wine and onion, then the ink sac is added in the last minutes to colour the rice; the dish should be a deep black, never grey. Best at Trattoria alla Madonna, Vini da Gigio and Al Gatto Nero on Burano.
Where to try it: Trattoria alla Madonna, Vini da Gigio, Trattoria al Gatto Nero, Osteria Anice Stellato, Antiche Carampane
Watch out for: Shellfish, Dairy
A paper cone or platter of mixed deep-fried lagoon fish: schie, calamari, prawns, sole, sometimes whitebait. The canonical Venetian fish supper.
History: Fritto misto della laguna is the canonical Venetian fish supper, served as a sit-down platter at trattorias or as a paper cone at the historic fritolin counter (Vecio Fritolin keeps the 19th-century cartoccio tradition alive). The mix varies by season and morning catch: schie in summer, moeche in spring, calamari and prawns year-round, plus the occasional whitebait and sole. The fish is dredged in flour only, never breaded, and fried in olive oil to a pale gold. Best served immediately with lemon and a glass of Soave.
Where to try it: Osteria Vecio Fritolin, Trattoria alla Madonna, Antiche Carampane, Trattoria Corte Sconta, Trattoria al Gatto Nero
Watch out for: Shellfish, Fish, Gluten
Beef sliced paper-thin, served raw with a mustard-mayonnaise drizzle. Invented at Harry's Bar in 1950 and now a global classic.
History: Carpaccio was invented at Harry's Bar on Calle Vallaresso in 1950 by Giuseppe Cipriani for the Countess Amalia Nani Mocenigo, who was on a doctor-ordered raw-meat diet. Cipriani sliced the beef paper-thin and topped it with a Worcestershire-and-mustard mayonnaise drizzle in geometric pattern. He named it after the 16th-century Venetian painter Vittore Carpaccio, whose retrospective at the Palazzo Ducale was running that same year, because of the resemblance between the red beef and the painter's signature reds. The dish is now globally codified and still served the same way at Harry's Bar.
Where to try it: Harry's Bar, Bistrot de Venise, Met Restaurant, Bar Longhi, Locanda Cipriani
Watch out for: Egg, Mustard
White peach puree topped with Prosecco. Invented at Harry's Bar in 1948, the canonical Venetian cocktail and the city's most famous drink.
History: The Bellini was invented at Harry's Bar by Giuseppe Cipriani in 1948 for the painter Giovanni Bellini retrospective at the Doge's Palace. Cipriani noticed the soft pink colour of the Bellini paintings' robes and developed the cocktail to match: white peach puree (canonically only white, not yellow) with Prosecco, in a 1 to 3 ratio. The drink is still served the same way at Harry's Bar today, with the white peach puree prepared in-house from peaches harvested at the Cipriani family's Veneto orchards. Globally copied with frozen pulp or even pureed yellow peach, the canonical version is only available at the original.
Where to try it: Harry's Bar, Bar Longhi, Caffe Florian, Locanda Cipriani, Grancaffe Quadri
Watch out for: Sulphites
Peak food season in Venice is year-round.
Local dining hours: lunch around 12:30, dinner from 19:30.
service is typically included; small extra is welcome but not expected.
If you only have one meal, eat Sarde in saor. It is the dish most associated with Venice.