Venetian dining

The restaurant scene in Venice

A Venetian meal has many courses, and it can take a few hours to work your way through them all. This abundance is not just a scam played on tourists; Italians actually eat such massive full meals, to be accompanied by good wine and lively conversation.

The bread and cover charge
In 98% of Italian restaurants, you'll have to pay an unavoidable pane e coperto, a "bread and cover" charge of about €1.50 to €5 added onto your bill purely for the privilege of sitting down at the table. Although dining in Italy is relatively inexpensive, remember that the cost of your meal will include much more than just a first and second course. This coperto plus water and wine, an appetizer, coffee, dessert, and a digestivo can add up quickly on your check.

Start with an antipasto (appetizer), which in Venice means seafood. Frutti di mare are "fruits of the sea" and include a plethora of shellfish, crustaceans, and tentacled sea critters. Another archetypal Venetian starter is sarde in saor, sardines prepared with a sweet-and-sour sauce and often served with grilled slices of polenta (a distant, wetter, denser cousin to cornbread).

Your primo (first course) could be a soup (try the zuppa di cozze mussels soup); a rice (risotto alle seppie, stained with squid ink, is popular, but it's beat out by risi e bisi, a creamy blend of rice and fresh peas, sometimes with bacon); or a pasta—perhaps spaghetti alle vongole (spaghetti with clams), or al pomodoro (in a plain tomato sauce) being the most common.

Quick Bites in Venice
The quintessential quick bite in Venice is the chichetti at any bar or bacaro.

Venice also has Italy's standard great take-out venues: the tavola calda (prepared hot dishes sold by weight) and rosticceria (same thing plus roast chickens). Most bars sell tramezzini, which are like giant tea sandwiches with the crusts cut off, filled with tuna, ham and cheese, tomatoes and mozzarella, etc.

Do not get pizza slices to take away in Venice; you'll get the wrong impression of Italian pizza, which only gets good from Rome on south. For picnic supplies, visit any succession of alimentarii (grocery stores), forno (bakeries), and fruttivendolo (fruit and vegetable stand)—the most evocative on a vegetable barge floating on the Rio San Barnaba canal in Dorsoduro.

Your secondo (main course) should take advantage of the setting and be fish. Most is priced by weight, grilled or otherwise simply prepared, and served on a bed of bitter red radicchio lettuce. Other popular secondi include anguille in umido (eels stewed with tomatoes, garlic, and white wine) and the local staple fegato alla Veneziana (tender calf's liver cooked down with onions).

Finish with a selection of formaggi (cheeses) or a dolce (dessert)—might I suggest the ever-popular tiramisù (espresso-soaked lady fingers layered with sweetened, creamy mascarpone cheese and dusted with cocoa).

Italy is famed for its wines, and the Veneto region around Venice produces some great ones, including the white Soave, and reds Bardolino and Valpolicello. The best table wines in the region tend to be the whites.