Try it both ways! They either soak it in milk, and when you bite it you get this rush of creamy stuff, or it is breaded and fried. No one should pass on Le Moeche if in season.

You should never go to the place that your concierge recommends in Italy, and especially in Venice.

You list Ostaria All’Antico Dolo for dinner. Around the Rialto Bridge, on the San Polo side, you have quite a few places that serve cicchetti. Some good, some bad. Mostly good. For cicchetti, it is best to hop from place to place. I don't specifically remember Antico Dolo, but I'm sure I've been there because there all clustered. It's kind of just a bar. You don't go there for dinner. Maybe lunch. They have some dinners, but it's a ciccchetti place. Dinner will be frozen food. It's like going to a neighborhood pub, and I don't think that's what you want. This is a better place for a snack, but you already have a bacari tour for lunch. This is just another bacari (little bar). In fact, your bacari tour might very well take you here, where you have reserved for dinner! And the truth is, A bacari is one of the few places you don't have to reserve, because it is just a local bar. It's a place to have a sardine on a piece of toast. A piece of gorgonzola on a piece of toast with a glass of wine. Not a place for dinner. All of the bars around Rialto are very atmospheric, and I know that's something you are looking for. I'm always stopping buy them for atmosphere and good cicchett, but you will be surrounded by kids talking on cell phones during your dinner at night, because it's a local bar.

When you are at Osteria da Alberto, which I think I know but am not sure, you'll be near Chiesa dei Miracoli. It's hardly ever open, but it is one of Venice's most beautiful churches. Tiny, but gorgeous marble. A hidden gem that not too many tourists know about. The only problem is no one seems to know when it is open, but it's worth a try.

Ristorante la Bitta is another nice place in Dorsoduro, where I also used to have an apartment. It's on Calle Lunga, or long street, same street as 4 feri. You should walk that street whole street, down to the ancient San Sebastian Church, and make it to the street called Fondamente Zattere. If you go down Calle Lunga, anyone can direct you to Zattere. It's straight ahead. It's actually the waterfront. You'll get great views. Have your gelato their, with great views, at Nico. Probably the best gelato in Venice, which is not saying all that much, but it's a great finish to dinner. I've never eaten at Bitta. It's nice, but only meat. In Venice, I eat fish. There is no place for a cow to graze in Venice, so I don't eat the meat. Bitta is only meat, so if that's what you want, I think it is OK because I've never had a bad meal on that street.

You have lunch time and say you want to walk around bacari, or places to get cicchetti, and want true neighborhood places, where they will squint at you and tilt there head because they don't speak english, and they don't cater to tourists. Try some of these:

http://www.dissapore.com/ristoranti/...-a-cannaregio/
http://www.dissapore.com/ristoranti/...e-santa-croce/
http://www.dissapore.com/grande-noti...pendendo-poco/
http://www.dissapore.com/grande-noti...venezia-mappa/

Whatever you do, don't fall for this: Most of the food in Venice is keyed up for tourists, and is frozen, cooked in a kitchen in a microwave. The poor people think it is the highest of all high food, and brag about it when they get home. It's actually frozen food, made in Germany, trucked down, and served to tourists. Be careful with your list. It has good and bad Vecchio Fritolin, Vini da Gigi, you have a lot of good ones on the above four websites. Stay out of San Marco Square or Rialto for food. The few restaurants trying to make it honestly put these signs on the street. Even though they say the food is not frozen, it is obvious from the menu that they are not serving venetian food, with pasta with alfredo sauce (alfredo sauce doesn't exist in Italy, it is a dish for tourists. No one would make a ragu bolognese in Venice. Even worse, look at the roast beef salad. No one in Italy would put a piece of fish or meat on top of a salad. Then there's turkey with fried green beans. Eat that at your own risk. It's like asking for Moeche in Bologna. Fo bar happing, cut and past the words into google handout them. Il Vecchio Fritolin is better than any on your list. Vini da Gigi. You'll eat well, right on a beautiful canal.

Why is the menu below in Venice, written entirely in english?

Venice is really hard in terms of food. What you might do is check the Slowfood website and/or the Accademia della Cucina Italiana for some recommendations. Most of the good ones are off the beaten path. Beware of any place that has 5 menus with 5 languages outside :-)

Perche, you're the best! Grazie mille!!!


A couple of additional questions -- first concerning "Ostaria All’Antico Dolo".

You say that it's not a place to go for dinner and will serve frozen microwaved food. Is that because it's mostly a place for cicchetti which are freshly prepared for lunch hour and stale by the end of the day? Not a full functioning kitchen outside of lunch hour?

The reason that I chose it for dinner, was admittedly because it looks more atmospheric at night but I did read on several blogs (I forget which but I'll try to dig them up) that the food was good. I'll take your word for it however. I suppose we'll add this one to our bacari tour and maybe move Friday's dinner at "Ai Barbicani" to this day instead, as we'd love to catch Rigoletto at the Palazzo Barbarigo Minotto on Friday evening anyway. I was planning on asking our concierge how we should best adjust our reservations to squeeze that in, but you've just made it a lot easier for me!

As for "Ca'Doro alla Vedova" - I'm sure that I've read good things about this place! Here's a review on Chowhound from several years back: http://www.chowhound.com/post/osteri...enetian-827644

I normally don't bother with rags like Time-Out or Lonely Planet as I'm not into tour guides, especially when it comes to food, but in this case the combo of (mostly) strong online reviews, good feedback on CH (which I hold most weight to) and the addition of these guide recommendations makes me think that it can't be that bad, right? I was really looking forward to this place. I'm already bummed that Trattoria Maddonna has gone south as that place looked like so much fun, so I'm especially disappointed to read your suggestion about Vedova now. It sounds like all of the most atmospheric and oldest trattorias and osterias are not serving very good food.

Here's the thing though -- I don't mind mixing up our dining plans between high end and middle of the road if a place is very special. The best example I can offer is here at home, in San Francisco. We eat out fairly often and on occasion, we'll go to "special" places like AQ, Cotogna, The Progress, etc. More often than not, if we aren't eating cheap Asian in the Richmond or Sunset, we'll switch between old favorites like Tommaso's or Da Flora or Sam's Grill. THESE are my favorite type of places to eat. We'll go to neighborhood spots like Octavia and old school higher end staples like Original Joe's, Harris', The Big 4 - we eat at these places fairly often. BUT every now and again we'll go to places like Tadich or even Gaspare's where I have to be honest, the food just isn't that great. Why do we bother? Because it's all about the experience and in my opinion, there's no more "San Francisco" institution than Tadich. Now if I want a great cioppino, I'll go to Sotto Mare. Unless I stick with the petrale sole or sandabs at Tadich, even the seafood in their cioppino tastes frozen to me. But I love it more than any other restaurant for the atmosphere. For the old school service. The strong drinks. The great bar. Sure their oysters are subpar and they can't really charbroil a decent steak to save their lives, but it's got an air of living history; where's time's stood still. The waiters in their white dinner jackets and black bowties have been dishin' out the same stuff every night for 40+ years. The silver haired fella behind the bar is somewhat of an old legend. It's nice that places like this still exist and I enjoy supporting them.

Now don't get me wrong -- if the food was absolutely disgusting or inedible, I'd have a much more difficult time justifying it. Venice might be an entirely different ballgame. But I'd like to visit at least one or two of these old establishments that have been going strong for 50+ years. I was hoping that there would be more enthusiasm for at least a couple of them. Surely there must be some good (not necessarily fantastic, but just good) timewarp trattorias or ostarias in Venice; not just cicchetti bars... :confused:

Anyhow, based on your comments about La Cantina (another one that's been rated highly on Chowhound) I think perhaps we'll visit for cicchetti as it looks more like a bacari anyway, and skip it for dinner. I guess we can just do a leisurely cicchetti tour of 5 or 6 bacaris on one or two separate afternoons and burn through them all. Here's an entry on it from a fairly reliable blogger: http://www.gillianslists.com/2015/11...e-to.html#more

Re. avoiding concierge recommendations, I usually avoid in ALL cities! I'm WAY too finicky both a traveler and eater (not in terms of being picky about food but about quality and setting) and that's such a subjective question with far too many influencing factors. Now I do NOT have any intention of asking our concierge for recommendations, but don't you think of all places, the Gritti Palace should be reasonably OK at steering visitors in a somewhat useful direction, if they were to ask? I mean, they're used to a pretty high profile clientelle and I'd bet they'd have some decent suggestions. Again, I have no interest one way or the other -- I like to plan and research myself! :)

Thanks for the tip on Chiesa dei Miracoli btw, I'll absolutely make a point of stopping in when we head over to da Alberto! It's a shame you won't be in Venice at the same time as us, as I would have loved to treat you to a dinner or drinks for all of your help - it's sincerely appreciated!!

I'm going to upload all of the files that I've made for this trip, in case you'd like to have a look through them. I've updated our dining list since you last checked, although I will do so again to reflect Vedova and Cantina, which we'll switch to our cicchetti lunch circuit.

Have you been to Venissa Ristorante in Mazzorbo? It's fancy and modern and expensive and not the kind of place that I'd typically consider, but I've heard that it's really, really good. I think my mom was even there a few years back. I definitely want to visit their vineyard to sample the famous Dorona.

And here's one more file because we are spending 10 nights at the Gritti after all so why not play the high end tourist role all the way through and book a luxe cruise on the Eolo (beautifully restored 1946 bragazzo) through the lagoon? :)

Also, can I trouble you for your TOP 5 picks for alternate dinner plans since we're switching our itinerary around yet again?

I notice that you've recommended Fiaschetteria Toscana a few times and I've seen it recommended on other trusted sites as well (Elizabeth Minchilli's excellent travel blog among others) but the many reviews on Chowhound and other forums that I've read in the past year have been pretty scathing. A lot of people have been saying their meals there have been really disappointing. Perhaps it's the latest victim of the exploitative tourist industry... or maybe it's just gone downhill as restaurants sometimes do over time.

I'd love to get your top picks for alt. dinner options.

^ I'm learning that quickly! I've been working on this itinerary all week and I'm still not entirely confident! Thank goodness for Perche!

Venice is certainly not an easy to plan for meals. Even the recommendations I'm receiving are often inconsistent from the last time a person's visited to present. The tourist industry really is killing the city.

Btw, one more non-food related question for Perche that I've been meaning to ask -- are those hideous billboards and giant advertisements plastered over the scaffolding of buildings and landmarks that are being restored still present? I've seen the blasphemous eyesore that was covering the Ponte dei Sospiri and felt sick. I see another giant Diesel ad over the Rialto Bridge as well. I truly hope these are not still up when we're in Venice. The Italian gov't and especially the ministry of culture and tourism should be ashamed!

I agree with Strada Nuova. Awful and I detest Vedova. Crappy wine and mediocre ciccetti. Don't even think about dining there. Fiaschetteria Toscana is among my favorite restaurants in Venice and it is just at the beginning of the Strada Nuova, very close to Rialto. Ask to sit downstairs order the apple cake for dessert and eat fish. See what looks good in the case up front. Avoid ordering a la carte vegetables as they will likely be overcooked. Fiaschetteria Toscana has one of the better wine lists in VCE. Sad, that our favorite waiter, Roberto, retired at the end of November. He served us well for many years. We'll miss him.

How recently have either of you visited Fiaschetteria Toscana? I've read a lot of mediocre and disappointing reports from reputable sources on Chowhound and other forums in recent months. It was originally on my top ten list, but I decided to pass on it as a result. I'm just curious the last time you were there?

Early February. I eat there frequently. It's not the best restaurant in Venice, but is definitely one of the better ones. I wouldn't necessarily call it a destination restaurant, but I've never had a meal there that wasn't excellent. It's opening hours are better than most, and it's a little easier to get a reservation there, so when my top choices are taken and at the last minute I'm looking for a good place to eat, if I'm in the neighborhood I never hesitate to go there.

There is nothing wrong with Antico Dolo for cicchetti. If you want atmospheric, open for centuries, that's the neighborhood for it, and that is one of them. It is just that they are not restaurants. It's not that the cicchetti are stale that they serve frozen food. Cicchetti are made as they need them. It's just that it's a bar with a few tables, not a restaurant. I go into the cicchetti places around that part of town all the time. I like the atmosphere. That's the oldest neighborhood in Venice. I just don't see them as places for a sit down dinner. Since they are a bar, not a restaurant, it's not like they have a chef with a fancy kitchen, making things from scratch. You're gonna get some frozen stuff. But I wouldn't hesitate to eat cicchetti there, or at any of the many bacari in that immediate area. Whenever I'm walking by, I'll always stop at one of them.

you really have to place cicchetti in one category, as in a bar, and restaurants in another. Some high end restaurants will have a few cicchetti as appetizers, but a cicchetti place is a neighborhood bar. OK to stop at most of them any time, as long as you're not near San Marco Square, or Strada Nuova, or the train station, or Piazzale Roma. All tourist central.

The Chowhound review is very revealing, and reveals the problem with these type of websites. While Chowhound is better than something like trip advisor, and occasionally gets posts by Katie Parla and Liz Minchilli, most of it is to be taken with a grain of salt.

Consider this. You gave a great review of places to eat for different moods and tastes in San Francisco. Now, suppose a tourist from Italy goes to San Francisco for three days, and eats in a few restaurants. Do you think a tourist from Italy who spent a weekend in San Francisco is a good source of information about where to eat in San Francisco, or a person like yourself. It's like asking for directions. If you are on one corner, and the tourist from San Francisco is on the other side of the street, should I walk up to the tourist and ask for directions to the Cow Palace, as if a weekend in SF makes him an expert in the area?

I read the link about Alla Vedova in Chowhound that you posted, and the problem is obvious. The poster says that while his wife and the rest of his party were taking a walking tour of Venice, he decided to skip the tour and explore on his own. So the poster is a tourist, who needs a guide to show him around Venice. He probably just followed the tourist flow of foot traffic, which of course, will lead you to Strada Nuova. Which in his article he refers to as, "Strada Nuovo." In Italian, feminine nouns are coupled with feminine adjectives, just like in spanish. Strada ends in an "a", so Nuova must end in an "a." You are clearly reading a review from someone who is on a weekend junket to Venice, and who hasn't eaten in enough places to be able to establish some sort of ranking in his head as to this is one of the worst, or this is one of the best. And he went at 12:30 in the afternoon and had a couple of cicchetti, which are just snacks. This touristic experience cannot translate into a place that one should go to for dinner.

There are still plenty of old style, charming places that serve great food. Also, the classic osteria, trattoria, ristorante distinction is basically gone, where osteria referred to a basic neighborhood place, a trattoria a mid-level place, and a ristorante a fancy, full service place with table settings, etc. That's historical, and not useful anymore.

For example, it was all over the papers a few weeks ago that a place in Modena that was always ranked as one of the best restaurants in the world knocked off Noma, which has sat at the top for year, as well as some of the places in Spain that have traditionally been at the top. It's name? Osteria Francescana, a super high end $350-$450 per plate place. Don't put any weight into the osteria, trattoria, ristorante thing. It's not meaningful anymore. Osteria da Fiore in Venice where you are going to eat has a Michelin star. So these days, an osteria can be more high end than a ristorante.

A concierge deals with tourists. He will send you to a place he thinks a tourist would like, a place that serves spaghetti and meatballs. He will assume you won't know any better, and will tell you it's the best place in Venice. He will be sending you to his friends place. His friend will have some relationship with him that is a way of paying him back. It's just a fact of life in Italy.

I wasn't familiar with Gillian's list. Her photos are fantastic. They are of the neighborhood I live in when over there, and make me sick because while I go to Rome next week, I refuse to be in Venice over the summer, and won't be back until November. She names of my favorite bars. It's in Dorsoduro and I stop for a glass of wine there almost every day. It's nothing special, but it's a neighborhood place that I like. It's around the corner from 4 Ferie (Ai Artisti). But not the restaurant down the block with the same name. The bar with the red sign. She admits that she is an expat that lives in Rome, and was just in Venice for Biennale for the weekend. I'm sure she has good taste, and I agree with her assessment of 4 ferie and a few other places, but with La Cantina, she was talking about having a beer. When I'm on Strada Nuova I'll sometimes veer into a side street for a glass of wine like she did, but I'm not eating there.

She mentions La Cantina in Strada Nuova only to stop there because they have craft beer. To eat she said she only had a couple of crostini with gorgonzola and walnuts. A crostini is a cracker or a piece of toast. She had a couple of crackers with cheese spread and a walnut as a snack with her beer. That doesn't make it a destination restaurant.

Sometimes I have to walk down Strada Nuova to get somewhere. It is a bunch of cheap shops. It has all the tourist traffic from the train station. Nothing good about it. For cicchetti, you really won't do badly just going deeply into Castello and Cannaregio, get as lost as you can, and stop in a bar. You will get old atmosphere and good to great cicchetti. Or any of the places not on the street after the Rialto bridge on the San Polo side. Just ask anybody to direct you to the oldest church in all of Venice, San Giacomo di Rialto, 2-3 blocks from the bridge, in use since the 1400's. It is surrounded by old style, good cicchetti places. People just make the mistake of going straight when they cross the bridge, following the tourist traffic with the shops selling fake goods, instead of just going a few blocks to the right.

Venissa is one of the best, if not the highest rated restaurant in Venice. It's tough to get to it, as it's on an island fairly far away. It's a hotel restaurant, and given that there is no vaporetto back and forth, it pretty much commits you to staying at their hotel for that night, so I haven't been there.

If you really want to save some trouble, a group of restaurateurs in Venice have formed something like a guild, where they hold each other to task for serving only fresh, locally sourced, authentic Venetian food, to the highest standards, at a fair price. It is called Ristoranti della Buona Accoglienza. Click on the symbol on the bottom left, and you can then choose english. Some of the restaurants you are going to are on the list. You can read about them here. I've eaten at all of them, many times. Never had anything less than outstanding food. There are dozens of great restaurants that don't want to join this guild, la Da Fiore, but if you eat at one of these you can't go wrong.
http://www.veneziaristoranti.it

And since you are eating at Al Covo, a guild member, I recommend this article to enhance the experience.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/03/di...nice.html?_r=0
And this article also explains some of the restaurants that are on your list, all members of Buona Accoglienza. Vecchio Fritolin, for example, should be on your list after you read about it on the Accoglienza website, and in the article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/travel/01Choice.html

A bit off-topic, but the Strada Nuova in Cannaregio wasn't Napoleon's fault. He built a different Strada Nuova in Castello, the Strada Nuova dei Giardini, which is now called the via Garibaldi, by filling in canals. The much-reviled one under discussion here was begun by the Austrians, but the major part of it was constructed under Italian rule to create a path to the railway station in the mid-19th century, well after the Little Corporal's demise. And that's today's bit of Venetian trivia.

You are right. Now, around Via Garibaldi is the area where I rent an apartment for my stays in Venice. Unlike Strada Nuova that should be avoided, a walk down Via Garibaldi from the Bay all the way down to the other end of the street is one of Venice's most pleasant walks. One of my favorite streets. A great neighborhood restaurant is there, Il Galleon, and an excellent cicchetteria is there, La Rampa. When you get to the end go right, instead of heading left back towards San Marco, and begin to see deep Castello, authentic Venice.

Perche, thank you once again for not only the helpful links and feedback but for the added perspective! I am going to revise my list to place all cicchetti bars into one category (which we'll tour during the day) and lunch & dinner restaurants in two separate categories. This thread has been so useful and should serve as a definitive guide for anyone else traveling to Venice that wants to gain insight into the local food scene. A+++