John Hornick — Chef’s Apprentice
Here’s a collection of Tastes and Toasts from our recent Travels to Venice, which, in my opinion, is one of the world’s top five cities. If you have a few days in Venice and want good food and wine with local ambience, this is your budget-friendly gourmet guide.
Getting to Venice
My brother, who doesn’t have much travel experience outside the U.S., asked “is Italy a good place to go in June, and if so, where should we go, where should we stay, and what should we do? And why don’t you come along and be our tour guide?” So we jumped at the chance to go to Italy with my brother, his girlfriend, his son, and his son’s girlfriend. We visited Venice, Florence, and Rome. Look for my Travels Tastes & Toasts posts on Rome and Florence.
To book your trip to Venice, or anywhere, and to get good prices, use this Expedia box:
We used United points to fly to Rome, then took a train to Florence, then Venice. If you have slightly fewer points than you need, you can buy enough to get you a free trip from United. If you want to stay in Marriott hotels and don’t have enough points, you can also buy more here.
We travel with only one bag and a backpack each. I have been using this Pathfinder bag for many years. It has a large compartment with top or bottom access, and a nylon panel can be unzipped to combine the soft upper compartment and the rigid lower. The whole bag is heavy duty, including the retractable handle and wheels, as proven by the fact that I have been using it for well over five years. It still looks new despite having been in many, many overhead luggage compartments, and Sarah just bought one because mine has served me so well for so long. What I like most about it is the pockets. I love pockets and it has many pockets both inside and out.
Where to Stay: Hotel Cavalletto & Doge Orseolo
We stayed at this hotel on our two most recent trips to Venice. It isn’t five star but it is old world, charming, reasonably priced, and stumbling distance from the piazza cafes and music of San Marco. Your tub may not drain as fast as you would like but that’s part of the charm of an ideally located hotel to which you can arrive or depart by boat, watch gondolas loading and jockeying in the lagoon, walk everywhere easily, sip an Aperol Spritz and read a book on one of the balconies for two just off the lobby and just above the water line, have a nice breakfast (included), and close the bar while the Baang & Olafson plays.
To book any other hotel, use this Expedia box:
Ristorante La Feluca
We had a great al fresco lunch here.
The calamari was light and airy and their vitello tonnato, which is one of the world’s great dishes, was perfect and well presented. Sarah really enjoyed the grilled octopus.
See my YouTube video on making Tonnato Sauce and my video on making what I call Porchetta Tonnato, which substitutes pork tenderloin for veal (which some people don’t like). Click here for butcher-quality pork tenderloin from Porter Road.
Ristorante Ca’ Dolfin
I’m not really a pizza guy and on the rare occasions that I eat pizza I have a white one, but the other five people I was with loved the pies here.
And I must admit that mine looked and tasted great, accompanied by ample Valpolicella (I provide links for comparable wines, which are available at good prices from Wine Express). We had a very enjoyable lunch here on a beautiful Venice afternoon.
Ostaria Antico Dolo
We had a table for 6 in the far corner of this rustic spot, which was perfect for our rowdy group.
We thoroughly enjoyed the pasta with onions and anchovies, the seafood sampler (both the anti-pasti and the secondi versions), the capesante (scallops with the roe, which we rarely see in the US), and the seemingly bottomless bottles of Valpolicella and Pinot Grigio.
We had a fun conversation with our lively host, Marco, who gave us the dirt on the restaurant’s Wall of Fame (most of the photos featured the place’s former owner, who has gone to that Great Osteria in the Sky).
Restaurant Terrazza Danieli
The Danieli’s rooftop terrace can’t be beat for excellence of food, service, elegance, and view. It is also one of the top hotels in Venice. To book it, click here.
We loved my Cacio e Pepe with truffles (the server genuflected when I ordered it, really), which I forgot to photograph, and the accompanying Amarone. The beef tartare was not only delicious but very uniquely plated.
Check out my YouTube video on making Cacio e Pepe.
Venice Duck Store
These ducks aren’t edible, but being a Jeep owner who has been ducked many times, I appreciate the world’s rubber duck stores (this was my second, having first duck-shopped in Madrid).
The six of us drew each other’s names from a hat, then bought a duck to match the personality of the name we drew (you really don’t know what people think of you until they have to buy you a rubber duck). The store had a good selection of Venice-centric ducks, which we have added to our collection.
Gelato Fantasy
I judge all dark chocolate gelato against Prague’s Cream and Dream version, which is the darkest chocolate gelato I have found anywhere. Gelato Fantasy’s Chocolate Fondante is a strong contender, very dark and very rich.
I paired it with some Snickers gelato, which was jam-packed with Snickerishness. My friend had one of the waffle-on-steroids cones, which she asked to be filled with a surprise mix.
The kitchen sink result did not disappoint either the eyes or the buds.
Il Paradiso Perduto
After a healthy walk from San Marco, we enjoyed a yummy dinner and a litre of vino rosso de casa (served in a retro straw-wrapped bottle) in this neighborhoody spot. One nearby table of six seemed to be local guys who gathered for dinner after work.
My house-made bucatini-ish pasta with perfectly cooked pieces of cuttlefish and nero seppia (squid ink, which you can buy in powder form for home cooking) was darkly beautiful and its taste hinted of the sea.
Sarah’s housemade tagliatelle with pesto was everything it should be. Check out my YouTube video on making Pesto.
The decor had a distinctly nautical vibe, which was augmented by a ship’s bell that rang from the kitchen from time to time, for some unknown reason.
There was also a bandstand near the back, where a combo contributed a jazzy but strangely short performance to our experience. There is also outdoor seating along the canal.
Ristorante Bacarandino ai Corazzieri
You will get in your steps for the day walking to this restaurant at the edge of everything, passing every kind of shop Venice has to offer. This area is more neighborhoody and residential, and less trafficked than most.
The food was very good and the service a bit slow, but we were in no hurry and dining al fresco, and the wine was flowing, so we thoroughly enjoyed our evening.
This is the only place in Venice I have seen Iberico Pluma, which is a fantastic but uncommon (in the U.S.) cut from the Spanish Iberico hog.
I loved it, grilled medium. Check out my YouTube video on making Iberico Pluma.
Note: tipping is NOT normal in Italy but this restaurant has some strange practice that seems to encourage an American-style tip. We just ignored it.
Approdo pizzeria ristorante
We enjoyed lunch on the shaded patio along the dock after exploring the glass making and glass galleries on the island of Murano.
Everyone wanted pizza. I’m not a pizza guy but when I do eat it I prefer the crust to be so thin that it snaps.
So on my pizza quality scale my Capricciosa, which had a very thin crust but was not quite snapable, was an 8, which is really good coming from a guy who is not crazy about pizza (9 or higher must be white pizza and the crust must snap).
My friend loved her calzone, which was as big as your head.
Ristorante Le Café
This quiet campo was a great place for dinner on the last night of our most recent visit to Venice: casual, al fresco and pleasantly warm on the longest day of the year, excellent food, inexpensive local wine, and a stone’s throw to a gelateria for dessert across the campo.
The order in which they served the dishes was a bit strange, with some secondis served with antis, followed by other people’s primis or secondis, but our order may have been confusing. I enjoyed my linguine alle vongole, which was loaded with tiny clams.
Check out my YouTube video Sarah’s Pasta with White Clam Sauce & Prosciutto.
Sarah enjoyed her pizza capricciosa, which was thin-crusted, as she likes it.
Caffè Quadri
This is our go-to place for a Venice nightcap (we prefer the other place across San Marco, Caffe Florian, for late afternoon to dusk).
The music here tends toward the jazzy, which makes the late-night view of San Marco Basilica somewhat magical. Travelers have been enjoying the drinks, music, food, white-tuxed servers, and ambiance of this Venice institution and its predecessors since 1638, which is partly why we love it.
Caffè Florian
This caffe, which has been on my very short list of world-favorite places for many years, is our go-to stop for a drink, olives, and potato chips in the late afternoon or dusk timeframe (I prefer Caffe Quadri across San Marco for a nightcap).
This cool spot combines a spectacular view of San Marco Basilica, the Campanile, people feeding pigeons, servers formally dressed in white, and live music, which tends toward the Classical.
The combo also takes requests, so I requested Bella Ciao, which never fails to make everyone feel good.
People have been enjoying this caffe in the same way, every day, since 1720, which is reason enough to love it.
Conclusion
This is only a small sampling of Taste and Toasts in the most exciting, stunning, historic, unique, and romantic city in the world.
Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. If you buy from a link on this site, I may earn a small commission from the vendor without any additional cost to you. No company pays me to say anything in particular, or to say nice things. I only stand behind products I believe in.
