When in Rome, as they say, do as the Romans do. In this case, that means eating excellent Italian food and drinking excellent Italian beverages.
Picture, if you will, a hot summer day in Rome. You’re a tourist, and you’re visiting Rome’s big sights, many of which are outdoors or require long waits in outdoor lines, with little to no protection from the rays of the oppressive sun. Perhaps you’ve chosen to visit the Roman Forum at midday. Perhaps you’ve not gotten up at the crack of dawn to get an early entry to the Vatican Museum. Perhaps you don’t find yourself close enough to those lovely burbling fountains when you need them. Whatever your situation, you are going to be thirsty - and that’s where the Aqua Store comes in.
Situated in the Galleria Centrale of Rome’s Termini train station, the Aqua Store, opened in 1999, is an entire shop dedicated to that most humble of beverages - water. The idea behind the store is that there are many different types of waters, and they are useful for different kinds of people at different times in their day or life. When you go into the Aqua Store, you are confronted with a dazzling array of choices in modern refrigerated containers, but don’t be overwhelmed. A handy touch-screen questionnaire (in Italian, mi dispiace, but I imagine you can find either an employee or a new Roman friend to help you translate) will help you choose the right water for you - you simply answer a series of questions, and out pops a recommendation.
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Not everyone who visits Italy is a foodie, but many of the people I talk to who are planning trips to Italy are hoping to eat well while there. They might not go as far as Naples to sample pizza or as far as Bologna to eat tortellini, but they’re still hoping to experience some of that world famous Italian cuisine.
Some of the people I’ve talked to have gone so far as to marvel aloud at how lucky people are to live, shop and eat in Italy. In fact, I’m one of those people. But it’s easy for those of us who only visit once in awhile (our wallets fat with holiday spending money) to wax poetic about the rustic outdoor markets we walk past and photograph, especially since we don’t have to worry about what things really cost.
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Venice isn’t known for its good places to eat. It is, in fact, known for the exact opposite - it’s one of those cities that even non-foodies complain about, because of the high prices and mediocre food. But not all the places to eat in Venice serve bad food. After all, there’s no way the residents of Venice would put up with bad food, although they might be content to let the tourists eat it!
One option when thinking about dining in Venice includes the Venetian equivalent of tapas, called “cicchetti” (pronounced chee-KEH-tee). The idea is you get a glass of wine and a selection of little plates of food, from bite-sized items on toothpicks to small samples of regular meals. These places, called “bacaro,” can be stand-up only, although some have small tables inside and, in good weather, you may also opt to bring your quasi-picnic outdoors and sit on the steps of a nearby bridge to eat. You can choose to visit several places to make up a meal, or choose one and keep sampling until you’re full.
So, where should you eat in Venice? Some options to consider are listed below (I haven’t tried all of these personally, so I’m relying on the reviews of others), and don’t forget about that excellent website that lets you pinpoint any Venice address with ease, or to read my tips for eating well in Venice!
Places to Eat in Venice
On a Budget (Be advised that even “budget” dining in Venice could be more than you might spend in other touristy Italian cities.)
Osteria ai Promessi Sposi (Cannaregio 4367 on Calle dell’Oca) - excellent selection of typical Venetian cicchetti, plus regular plates
Do Mori (San Polo 429 on Calle dei do Mori, near Rialto Market) - reportedly Venice’s oldest bar, serving typical Venetian cicchetti
Osteria da Carla (San Marco 1535 on Corte Contarina off Frezzeria, closed Sundays) - simple Italian meals
Osteria “Alla Botte” Cicchetteria (San Marco 5482 on Calle della Bissa, closed Thursdays) - typical Venetian cicchetti
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People who know me know that I enjoy good food. I consider a good meal a vacation experience worth spending money on, and have food memories from every holiday I’ve ever taken. So when friends have been planning trips to Italy, they usually ask me where to eat. While I don’t have a list of restaurants I’ve eaten in all over the country, I do have a personally tested method of ensuring I eat well in Italy. It’s a tiny book, about the size of a phrasebook, and it’s called The Hungry …
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You might remember this video I posted awhile ago, courtesy of Jeff in Puglia, of his local pizzaiolo making a pie. In that video, we saw the formation of the dough into perfect rounds. Well, Jeff’s been back at the pizzeria, video camera in hand, and this time we get to see the application of the sauce and the cheese to that perfectly-formed dough.
Okay, I’m hungry now.
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Americans are generally quite familiar with the idea of Happy Hour. It’s usually a great thing - you get huge portions of good food for pennies on the dollar, as long as you buy a drink. Which, after many an American workday, is a much needed thing anyway. Happy Hour is a fantastic way to stretch your dining dollar, but until recently it’s been completely unknown in Italy.
Nowadays you can find the odd bar, cafe or restaurant in Italy which has a Happy Hour menu, though they’re still comparatively rare. Elizabeth writes about one place in Rome that’s doing Happy Hour here, and notes that they’re not just doing what we might call “bar food,” but honest-to-goodness real food. She says that after 6:30 you can pay €10 and get a drink with a plate of food. It’s buffet style, and you can choose from pasta, rice salads, sandwiches, shrimp, etc. Elizabeth adds that there’s an important cultural difference between Italy and the United States which is honored in this Happy Hour menu - it’s not called “supper” for a reason:
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Vacationers in Italy exist in something of a bubble, where they think they’re experiencing something of authentic Italian life without getting close. They may eat differently, spend their time differently, focus on different things - but ultimately, they’re on holiday and they’re not engaging in any of the routine daily tasks that they would if they lived there.
I think this is why it’s so easy to drift into that romantic state of, “Oh, wouldn’t it be glorious if we could move to Italy?” People forget that even in Italy there is still grocery shopping to be done and laundry to hang (because almost no one has a clothes dryer). And even though the husband and I have thought about living in Italy more than just making sigh-filled passing comments during a piazza stroll, we’ve been guilty of over-romanticizing it, too. Really, it’s quite difficult not to.
So in an effort to bring a dose of reality back to anyone who’s contemplating a move to Italy, here are a couple of articles about Italian food to get you thinking.
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If you’ve ever gone into, say, an Olive Garden after a trip to Italy, you’ve probably been amazed at what the popular American chain calls Italian food. Sure, there are elements of Italian cooking in there - like pasta and red sauces with Italian names - but an Italiano vero e proprio would be shocked (shocked, I say!) by what the restaurant passes off as Italian food.
And this bastardization of Italian cuisine isn’t limited to places like Olive Garden (or Romano’s Macaroni Grill or any number of other chains), or even to the United States. Italian cooking, famous for its simplicity, is therefore relatively easy to duplicate the world over - meaning it’s also pretty easy to do it badly. The Italian Academy of Cuisine (AIC) has apparently had enough of this, as they are calling for “food ambassadors” to “stem the worldwide tide of insults to [Italy's] culinary glory.”
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When people go to Italy, one of the things they’re usually expecting is great food. Yes, it’s the country of art and music and fashion and scenery - but there are scores of people every year who visit Italy simply to eat, and eat well. The good news is that, throughout most of the country, this is very easy to do - and on very little money. The even better news is that there’s a relatively new way to experience Italian food when it’s at its best - at home.
Home Food is an organization which began in Bologna (the heart of the food-centric Emilia-Romagna region) in April 2004 to both preserve local cooking traditions and also show off the best cuisine Italy has to offer. The program is designed to appeal to both visitors wanting to taste real Italian cooking and Italians who want to re-learn the cooking skills that may have been lost through the generations. And from all accounts, it’s succeeding wildly so far.
The way the program works is that you pay a membership fee (it’s much more expensive to be a member in Italy than it is as a tourist) to start and then you’re able to see what dinners are on the calendar for any given region of the country. You’ll pay an additional fee to the host of the meal, usually €30-50 depending on how fancy or how many courses it is, and you’ll go to someone’s home to eat. It could be the cozy dining room of a Rome apartment or the table-for-twenty salon of a Tuscan palazzo. What you’re guaranteed of getting, no matter where you are, is an Italian meal with food and recipes that are typical of that city and region as well as that time of year.
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You might imagine Italy to be a land of traditions - the kind of traditions you don’t mess with if you know any better - and you’d be right. For reasons I don’t quite understand, for instance, the number 17 is extremely unlucky. Let this be a lesson to you - if you want to host a party in Italy and have anyone show up, don’t have it on the 17th of any month. It’s like Friday the 13th, only worse. I feel for the poor Italian kids who just happen to be born on the 17th, through no fault of their own.
Festivals and celebrations are rife with traditions - and weddings are no exception. Shelley has been planning her own Roman nuptials, and she went on an errand recently to get the supplies for the traditional party favor: confetti. Not the kind you throw at people on their way out of a wedding reception, though; these confetti are edible. We know them as sugared almonds, but in Italy they’re practically an art form.
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