What To Eat In Venice

Let's face it; Venice is known for its beautiful canals, outstanding architecture, and a dreamy atmosphere; not for its fantastic food!   Most visitors to Venice are unaware that the traditional Venetian cuisine that dates back centuries even exists.  Don't despair; there is typical Venetian food, and I will help you to eat like a local in Venice.   

Yes, there is A LOT of pizza in Venice, which is an authentic dish in the south of Italy.  Eating pizza in Venice is equivalent to having deep fried chicken in Canada; it's still a North American dish, but the origin of deep fried chicken is from the Southern USA, thousands of miles away and definitely not local.  With the average tourist coming into Venice off a cruise ship typically spending only 6-8 hours in Venice and the average tourist on an organized group bus tour just spending about 2 days in Venice,  many restaurants only put out tourist menus never expecting to have repeat customers.    Even so, there are 60,000 residents in Venice and their food and wine culture is alive and well...

Cicchetti 101

Cicchetti  Bar Culture

When thinking about authentic food in Venice, the first thing that comes to mind is "cicchetti."  Cicchetti ( pronounced chee-KET-ee) is a Venetian dialect word that refers to "a small bite" like tapas in Spain.    Cicchetti can be as simple as olives and cheese or more elaborate finger food. Asiago cheese comes from the Veneto region and is delicious with a small glass of local wine which is called an "ombre" in Venetian dialect. Another type of cicchetti is baguette or crostini topped bites of meat, egg, cheese or a roasted vegetable spread.  One other common cicchetti you must try are "polpette." Polpette are succulent meatballs that are breaded and deep-fried and served hot or cold.
There are dedicated cicchetti Bars called "Bacari" that are open from lunchtime to after the dinner hour (and some well into the night) offering reasonably priced drinks and finger foods to hungry Venetians.  For more information on Venice's cicchetti tradition and where to find them, check out my blog post on First Timer's Guide To Venice.

Seafood

The Venetian lagoon provides an abundance of seafood dishes to the floating city.  Grilled baby squid "seppioline all grillia", marinated anchovies "acciughe marinate", and the famous "sarde in saor" which is a dish of sardines in a "sweet & sour" sauce of vinegar and onions and served on crostini are all famous regional dishes that can be found in Osterias and Bacari in Venice.  You will find many Venetian dishes are pickled or in vinegar sauce because it was a method of food preservation for sailors during the middle ages.

Mixed Seafood Cone

For street food that has a sampling of all the lagoon has to offer, look for stands selling "Cono Pesce Frito Misto" which is a paper cone loaded with deep fried mixed seafood bits!  It's absolute heaven.  There is a famous one in the San Polo district of Venice, but we had some as a snack from a stand near the ferry dock on Burano.  The place was called Frito Misto and for under €6, we had a delicious and freshly caught mini-meal!



Another delicious Venetian specialty is "baccalà montecato" which is a light and fluffy cod dish.  This is often eaten as antipasti or appetizer and is dried cod that has been soaked, and then poached and blended with olive oil to create a smooth mousse.  It is usually served on slices of grilled polenta or as a side dish to your main meal.  It was my favourite dish in Venice.

Where's The Pasta?

In Venice pasta is NOT king.  In fact, pasta is more of a southern Italian dish.  In the north of Italy, rice is king, and the Veneto region grows rice for risotto as its staple grain.  There are many risotto dishes in Veneto Region, but the most traditional in Venice is "risotto al nero di seppia" which is rice cooked in squid ink.  The jet-black rice dish is prepared with onion and tomato and has a robust briny seafood flavour.  If you ever had squid-ink pasta, you can recall the taste and magnify it by 10!

Speaking of rice don't forget the classic "Risi e bisi"!  Not only is it fun to say, this rice and peas dish that is halfway between risotto and soup.  Traditionally eaten on St. Marks Day on April 25th when the Rialto Market is overflowing with stalls selling fresh peas.  This traditional dish has no fish yet a salty element is added with smoky Italian bacon called pancetta.  The sweet and crunchy freshly shelled peas give a nice contrast to the recipe.

Bigoli In Salsa

Another staple grain in Venice that you must try is polenta.  This is grain came over from the Americas after it was discovered in 1492 and by the mid-1500's polenta was a staple grain in the Veneto Region.  The white polenta from Veneto is eaten like bread with the evening meal, and cold or grilled and served with cheeses, honey or jam as breakfast or snacks the next day.

The last item that I recommend you try is a pasta made with buckwheat, rather than semolina flour that most pasta is made from.  Sometimes made with whole wheat instead of buckwheat (which is not actually a wheat at all) this pasta is called "bigoli" (or bigoi in dialect) these long, thick spaghetti shaped noodles are served in "salsa" or sauce with onions and salt-cured fish such as sardines or anchovies.  Traditionally, this dish used to be served on Holy Days like Good Friday or Christmas Eve when meat was not eaten, but now it is served as regular fare in local restaurants.

Desserts

Tiramisu

Tiramisu This is the great cake debate.  It is one of the most famous Italian desserts that became super popular in North America in the 1980's.  It was said to have been invented in Treviso in the 1960's, but there is much debate in the food world about that.  Tirame sù means "pick me up" in Venetian dialect and this coffee soaked cake, with chocolate and mascarpone cream, is the ultimate decadent dessert to sample in Venice.

There are also many cookies that are local Venetian delicacies, all you have to do is go into a bakery to see the variety that is offered.  Many of the recipes date back to the Middle Ages when the spice trade was established along the Silk Road.  For example, Pevarini cookies are made with black pepper and sweetened with molasses.  This recipe dates back to the 1400's when pepper was new on the spice scene.  For more on the cookies of the Venice area, I wrote a bit about it in my blog post on the neighbouring island of Burano which has a lot of unique cookie recipes that are specific to the tiny island.

Deep Fried Custard

I bet you haven't heard of these little, fried delights called "crema fritta."  This is custard that has been chilled until firm, cut into shapes, breaded and then deep-fried and sprinkled with icing sugar or cinnamon sugar.  Ahhhhhhhh!  Sweet and crunchy on the outside and soft and creamy in the middle.  This a type of street food that is usually served in the winter from Christmas to Carnevale.

Speaking of Carnevale another street sweet that appears before Lent is "Fritole."    Fritole are sweet pastry fritters made from a dough consisting of eggs, butter, milk and flour.  Then raisins and pine nuts are added for texture.  The mixture is formed into little balls and deep-fried and then rolled in sugar.  They are often washed down with prosecco, a local sweet sparkling wine.  On the subject of wine, Venice and the Veneto Region have so many unique wines and cocktails to offer that I want to tell you about, but I believe a separate blog post would be the only way to let you know about the fantastic varieties available to you.

There are so many more unique Venetian dishes that I have not mentioned here, and if you have a favourite that you tried, please let me know in the comments section below and Buon Appetito!

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