St Mark’s Square and the Rialto Bridge are one side of Venice, but there’s a hidden, hedonistic side to the ancient city, as Ian Belcher discovers
I may be in Venice, but I’m most definitely not in La Serenissima: the most serene republic with its hushed renaissance churches, decaying palazzo and soft-hued Canaletto artworks. Tonight I appear to have stepped back into the city’s licentious, Bacchanalian and hedonistic 18th century heyday.
I’m hugging the bar in a packed osteria, guzzling local vino and munching snacks, serenaded by high-octane Balkan jazz. As diners rise from the long communal tables to dance, the double bass player straddles his instrument and performs an act worthy of Casanova. What on earth would the Doge say?
An intriguing window on daily life in Venice
El Paradiso Perduto, owned by a philosopher and occupying the old stables used by Napoleon’s troops, is one of the memorable stops on a waterborne foodie tour. I’m bacari hopping – an early evening local ritual known as the bacarata – dropping in on the bottle stores and stand-up bars selling cicchetti (melt-in-your-mouth canapés). Naturally, you’ll want to see the city’s showstoppers, St Mark’s Square, the Palazzo Ducale and Rialto Bridge – but the bacarata opens an intriguing, off-the-beaten-canal window on daily Venetian life.
For an extra dash of La Dolce Vita, my hotel – the A-lister’s favourite, the Cipriani – has commandeered a vintage Venetian vessel: a gloriously restored San Pierota fishing boat. Of course, chic antique transport isn’t compulsory; you can easily track the cicchetti hotspots down yourself. In a tourist honeypot of sometimes eye-wateringly pricey (often very average) dining the €1.50 snacks and €2 wines are great value. Scoff ten and you have a bargain meal – and possibly indigestion.
Perfect setting, perfect snacks
Accompanied by the smooth Enrico Isacchi, a guide happy to wear white jeans and mirrored shades – how very Italian – our tour begins in a wash of early evening honeyed light. We pass lush gardens swaddling southern Giudecca before wriggling along the island’s waterways and crossing its manic canal into Dorsoduro, arguably the loveliest of the city’s six districts. Just past San Trovaso Church and dockyard, where two gondolas sit on dry land awaiting repair, we reach the elegantly distressed wood sign of Già Schiavi. In front of its classic façade a gaggle of Venetians are enjoying a post-work waterside snifter. It’s an advert for the good life.
The perfect setting is matched by the perfect snacks. The owner’s mother, Alessandra De Respinis, is a cicchetti queen. She writes cookbooks, wins multiple awards and pushes the boundaries of what’s possible on top of a small disk of crusty Italian bread. Today I sample the quirky but successful blend of tuna, eggs, capers and cocoa powder, followed by pumpkin with cheese and shrimp marinated in onion, before scoffing a scampi mousse with balsamic bubbles: a gourmet trinity to put most wedding canapés to shame.
‘My mother’s very special,’ says Paulo, the third generation of the Gastaldi family to run the bacaro since 1950. ‘She mixes ingredients you’d never normally put together. How will I ever replace her?’
Everyone falls in at least three times
I knock back a second glass of the fruity local plonk called Ronchi di Cialla, and consider his dilemma. It clearly needs a third glass. ‘One more?’ asks Paulo. ‘You aren’t driving. It’s why Venetians are Italy’s biggest drinkers. Everyone growing up here falls in the canal at least three times.’
‘That must be terrible in winter.’
‘Depends how much you’ve drunk.’
He has a point. The wine is unshackling my tongue. I tuck into another shrimp cicchetti and strike up conversation with a neighbourhood artisan. Piero is completing the seventh year of his oar-making apprenticeship – an unwavering dedication to a centuries old Venetian craft. ‘You never stop learning,’ he shrugs and sips. ‘It’s like life.’
Where Browning died, and Wagner wrote Tristan und Isolde…
Alessandra De Respinis clearly takes the same approach to her cicchetti. They’re hard to leave but the clock is ticking. We navigate a watery web past Tramontin and Figli, celebrated boat builders since 1884, then Ca’ Rezzonico where Robert Browning died, followed by the Grand Canal Palazzo where Wagner wrote Tristan und Isolde.
Barely a minute after passing the Greek temple exterior of San Simeon Grande, a church displaying Tintoretto’s Last Supper where, in 1795, a ceiling collapse killed a praying noblewoman – stop smiling, Richard Dawkins – we anchor outside bacaro number two.
La Rivetta is local favourite in working class Santa Croce. Cocooned by interwar social housing it’s still the haunt of struggling artists, and more reminiscent of the era when the first bacaro offered cheap sustenance for poor homes without kitchens. In its dimly lit interior, with framed poems celebrating the benefits of a daily tipple, Frank, a bearded man mountain, serves me basic but scrumptious ham and salami cicchetti, lubricated with rocket fuel red wine.
I discreetly take out my reporter’s notebook to make a polite British enquiry. ‘I don’t wish to be nosy but is this a family business?’
‘Are you the police?’ Frank growls.
‘No,’ I stammer. ‘A journalist.’
‘Well mind your own business – and eat your food.’
Campo San Giacomo dell Orio – a divine setting
It’s all done with Gordon Ramsay-esque faux gruffness. I love this bar, its earthiness, its total lack of tourist tat, its air of melancholy. I mustn’t wallow however, more bacari await. They include Il Prosecco, a five-minute ride past Campo San Boldo, one of the backdrops for Visconti’s Death in Venice. It has an excellent cellar, tasty if low-key cicchetti and a divine setting on Campo San Giacomo dell Orio. I chew a lean roast beef and mayo snack, sink a Prosecco – what else? – and watch children playing in the shadow of the Romanesque Renaissance Church.
It’s a ridiculously charming and relaxed scene that shouldn’t have me checking my watch. But time matters. Bacari are an early evening fixture, starting to close by 8.30pm. We nip past the historic Jewish ghetto in the northwest of the city, laced with hidden gardens and expensive apartments, before sliding up in front of El Paradiso Perduto in in Cannaregio. To be honest it’s playing fast and loose with the definition of bacari. It’s more full-on osteria but there are bar snacks and fabulous music so who’s complaining? It’s a top tip for any visit.
Bacaro opening hours are now over but the Cipriani can’t resist giving this particular tour a gourmet finale. As shadows flit across ageing walls, we head east into Castello, anchor up and enter an anonymous back door above the coal-black water. It feels thrillingly secret: I’m surprised we’re not asked for a Masonic password.
Tucked into a tiny al fresco back courtyard is the most atmospheric chef’s table in Venice. Complete with four ancient cinema seats, it’s part of the celebrated restaurant Enoiteca Mascareta. In the early evening it serves excellent cicchetti but also offer seriously good dining and an acclaimed wine list, including top-notch Champagne.
A sublime risotto
As we swig organic Prosecco under an astral blanket of stars, owner Mauro Lorenzon – a Groucho Marx doppelgänger – works his magic on a small tableside stove. He talks non-stop, adds torrents of brandy with devil-may-care abandon and conjures up a sublime risotto with sea asparagus and tartufi di mare (creamy clams).
‘Libertá,’ he roars, flamboyantly uncorking a third bottle of Prosecco with a slash of his antique sword (a technique known as sabrage). ‘Slow cooking, fast drinking. In Venice there’s no driving and no worries. Fantastico.’ How true. Our dusk bacarata may have mutated into something far more substantial and boozy, but it laid the foundation for an unforgettable feast. We reboard our San Pierota fishing boat, hang a lantern off the prow and wobble our way back across the lido to the Cipriani. Libertá indeed.
The Cipriani offers three-hour guided bacaro walking tours for up to four people from £319. Water transport from £192 per hour (The San Pierota involves special request and rate). Dining at Enoiteca Mascareta can be arranged on request. www.belmond.com
Three other Venice tours with a difference
Paddle Power Kayaking is rarely so beautiful. Exquisite architecture, safe shallow waters – although the Grand Canal’s traffic may test your nerve – and endless narrow canals built for paddling. From their Certosa Island HQ, guides will takes you into the heart of La Serenissima, or out into the lagoon through marshlands alive with birdlife, past decaying monasteries to islands including Burano and Torcello. £79 per half-day. www.venicekayak.com
Casanova’s City Based on the life of the city’s most famous son, Giacomo Casanova, this two-hour guided private group tour reveals him to be more than merely a prolific lover and libertine. Expect anecdotes galore visiting sites such as Ridotto Venier, a salon he frequented for gambling and other vices, Osteria Alle do Spade, site of a debauched Carnival night, and Castelletto – the famous red light district. There’s also the Cannaregio property of one of his great lovers; Fondamente Nove, from where he embarked for liasions with a nun living on Murano island, and his long-term house, Palazzo Bragadin. £173 (up to ten people), www.venetoinside.com
Spooky Venice A 1.5-hour evening guided walking tour that takes you to the city’s dark hidden corners including six ghost sites. You’ll see the curled stone of the haunted Bovolo staircase that allowed a nobleman to ride his horse up to his apartment, and hear the gruesome facts about Biasio – the child-killing butcher who added his victims’ limbs to the stew – and sinister tales about Venice’s stunning palazzo. There’s also a stroll across flagstones hiding a medieval cemetery, a walk along Calle dei Assassini, a shadowy street once frequented by killers and criminals – the site of several brutal murders – and a chance to enter one of the city’s last secret passages. From £23pp, www.viator.com
For more on Venice, check out our Venice Travel Guide.
