Shopping
Being of Italian extraction, food is in my blood and so is shopping for
it. In the bustling Rialto food market, I buy ingredients for the boat.
There’s been a market here for more than a thousand years, and you can
feel history all around you. I have a rough idea of what I’m going to
cook, but now I’m here I’ve changed my mind several times. The fish
glisten in carefully laid out rows, including canocce, the plump local
prawns.
Ingredients on display
The quality of the seasonal fruit and vegetables (which include
purple artichokes called castraure) is astonishing. My shopping bags fill rapidly with fragrant herbs,
radishes, squash flowers, prawns and crabs. The light is magical, sharp
from a pale blue sky and golden in the early morning sun.
The only spice shop left on a street named after the many that were
here,
Drogheria Mascari (Ruga degli Speziali, San Polo 381; T: +39
041 522 9762), is definitely a one-off, its window dressed with pointed
piles of spices and dried herbs. I buy strong and bitter dried basil
flowers, and balsamic vinegar. At a corner store, I stop for eggs and
Parmesan, and cram a pasta machine into my handbag.
Once on board, there’s no wind, so the 70-odd boats remain almost
stationary. Wallowing like basking sharks, we wait for il vente. It
never arrives. The constant bobbing makes me incredibly queasy, but –
I’m still not sure how – I manage to win the international category with my dishes of roasted John Dory with
spinach, courgette flowers; and king prawn tortellini with a soft-shell
crab vinaigrette.
Coffee
The Italians have a saying: cappuccino is for babies and breakfast. I
love it when the froth is swirled into a heart shape. You probably
can’t get a bad cup of coffee in Italy but if you want swank, then
you’ll get it at the famous
Caffè Florian (Piazza San Marco 56; T:
+39 041 520 5641), where they serve tea in silk tea bags.
A confection
of plush and sparkling glass inside, the outside has shapely wooden
seats that curve round the pillars and billowing white blinds hung
between the ancient arches of the piazza. Across the way,
Caffè Lavena
(Piazza San Marco 133; T: +39 041 522 4070) is no less sumptuous with
its Murano glass chandeliers and, say the locals, the best espresso in
town. Wagner, Liszt and Rostropovich were regulars here.
Drinks
Behind the Rialto market sprawls edgy Erberia in the bustling sestieri
(district) of San Polo, where there’s a raft of bars on the edge of the
Grand Canal. Naranzaria (San Polo 130; T: +39 041 724 1035) has
fusion sushi on offer, made with the freshest fish bought just around
the corner. Order a prosecco or a spritz al bitter – Campari with white
wine and soda – or a non-alcoholic gingerino, like ginger-flavoured
bitters. I enjoy it best when it comes with a fat green olive. Any
local bacari or bar is great for a quick drink, and you’ll notice that
the locals never sit down.
Walk back to St Mark’s Square and through to the Canale della Giudecca,
weave your way past the tourist tat and on a narrow corner you’ll find
the famous
Harry’s Bar (Calle Vallaresso, San Marco 1323; T: +39 041
528 5777). It’s been a magnet for the great and the good since 1931 –
everyone from Ernest Hemingway and Orson Welles to Woody Allen and
Nicole Kidman has enjoyed the atmosphere here. The polished teak
interior is strangely, immaculately ordinary; you could almost call it
sparse, but the waiters and bar staff are dressed to the nines.
The
bellini – a cocktail of white peach juice and prosecco – was created
here, as was their famous carpaccio: a dish of thinly sliced raw beef,
named after the Venetian artist who had a liking for deep reds in his
paintings. The food here is good, but while I love to visit Harry’s Bar for a
bellini, why sit with 50 other tourists? There are better places to eat.
Lunch and dinner
Venice stifles in the heat, so a breezy boat ride to the nearby island
of Burano, famous for its lace-making, is appealing. I step off the
boat and find myself in a world of enchanting narrow streets and
brightly painted houses.
Da Romano (Via Baldassare Galuppi 221; T:
+39 041 730 030) is a favourite of my friend Simon Hopkinson. Owned by the Barbero
family for four generations, there’s not a spaghetti strand’s width
between the paintings on the walls, given in exchange for dinner by
artists who flocked here for the stunning light. Simon said I had to have the fish risotto. They make a broth from grass
gobies, a sand-dwelling fish that’s unique to the waters of the lagoon,
and it does not disappoint.
The waiter shows me photographs of the
chefs doing the mantecatura, or stirring in, of the Parmesan and
butter, taken at the moment when the quick, powerful movement of the
whisk lifts the risotto out of the pan and into the air. It’s an
unusual risotto because butter and cheese rarely go with fish. It’s
quite wet and is served by spooning into the middle of the plate and
shaking it Other treats include
frittata di moeche, deep-fried soft shell crabs, a fantastic mixed grill of sea bass, baby octopus, sardines and spaghetti with cuttlefish sauce.
If you’re weary with wandering,
Al Covo (Campiello della Pescaria,
Castello 3968, T: +39 041 522 3812) is just a gondolier’s pole throw
away from the Piazza San Marco. Run by Diane and Cesare Benelli, it
offers some fantastically good food. I have vitello tonnato, thin
slices of veal with a tuna sauce, and bottarga, wild sea bass and
spaghetti with grated courgettes, which tastes simply of the sea. And
they have my favourite kind of amaretti, made by Giraudi – soft and
marshmallowy.
My uncle Renato has friends here who run a brilliant little place –
Trattoria da Arturo (Calle degli Assassini, San Marco 3656; T: +39
041 528 6974). It’s tiny. Minute. And with a kitchen to match. How do
these guys do it? Arturo, Allessio the chef and Hani have had this
place for 30 years, and apparently it has hardly changed.
We have a vegetable antipasti including
aubergine in vinegar with onions, mushrooms, potato and borlotti beans,
red cabbage and fennel, and thinly sliced carciofi or artichokes, which
I’m going to put on my menu when I get back. We have stracetti di
filetto alla rucola: sliced, soft-as-butter steak which comes in a
forest of rocket, for mains. Surprisingly for a Venetian restaurant,
they don’t serve any fish. For dessert I have the nearest I’ve tasted
to a real tiramisu. No sponge, no chocolate, no coffee. Just
mascarpone, sugar and vanilla, with amaretti to dip into it.
As the vaporetto carries us away to the airport, a rainbow arcs over
the little island of San Giorgio Maggiore and Palladio’s awesome 16th
century church. I can’t get enough of this mysterious, glittering place
and its fantastic food. I’ll always be back for more.