This week, the post is all about the amazing honeymoon that Esther and I had a few weeks ago.
Venice gets a bit of bad press in terms of it's food, but I'm here to tell you that if you stay away from the tourist hotspots and follow your nose to where the locals go, then you'll be eating some of the most incredible food in the world . . . . . we did!
I love Italian food, I love the simplicity of it. Using a few beautiful ingredients and getting the best out of them is what cooking is all about for me.
Venice itself is a magical fairytale of a place. The endless canals with their bridges, leading to little squares with tiny residential pathways or small allyways make it seem more like a film set than a city.
The touristy places are full of bars and restaurants that charge you a fortune to sit down at, and this is where Venice gets it's stigma. Everything in these places is overpriced. You are paying to be where you are, not for what you are being served. The problem is that to find the best places to eat, you need to be a bit brave. You need to move away from the main tourist strip and go where the locals go. It's not being brave really, as by doing so you are experiencing more of the real aspects of the city. Lets call it being that little bit more like Indiana Jones - exploring a little bit further to find the treasure.
Esther and I were never going to eat or drink in one of the tourist places as it's just not who we are. We went to Naples a few years ago and were blown away by the food we had. Most of which came from street vendors on the sides of the roads. The food was fast, the ingredients were high quality, it was all fresh and it was insanely delicious.
Venice, when you dig a little deeper, is incredible, and we found some amazing places.
I could start telling you about every meal, what we did every day and stuff like that, but I think that'll make this a diary rather than a food blog, so instead I'll keep it to a few things that were truly amazing.
The Rialto Market is a fabulous place to visit. We were up early one morning and headed down to see what they had going on and were both completely awestruck. I have never seen so much beautiful fresh fish. It was endless. The fresh fruit and vegetables were incredible too. Lots of which are grown on 2 dedicated islands in the lagoon. We bought some fruit, but I was gutted not to be able to buy any fish.
On our first day we walked over the Rialto Bridge after coming off the little ferry and found ourselves in the hustle and bustle of market stalls and street food vendors. We picked up a plastic cup full of fresh fruit because they looked amazing and were not disappointed. It was delicious.
The Trattoria al la Madonna is in a backstreet pretty close to the touristy places around the Rialto Bridge. It has a really vibrant atmosphere and beautiful food. Esther had black squid with white polenta which was incredible and I went for the Venetian classic spaghetti vongole which was fantastic. Squid ink has a fabulous depth of flavour and is something not to be missed, especially in Venice.
Il Sigillo is a small cafe with retro-diner style seating. We loved this place! We stopped there for breakfast one morning and had some beautiful speck rolls with rocket, oregano and some delicious olive oil. The coffee was awesome too. We had our final meal of the trip here too, which is pictured below. A beautiful fried pizza base topped with delicious vegetables, rocket and cured meat.
We took a boat trip to the islands of the lagoon, not in search of Venetian glass or lace (which is what the islands are most famous for), but in search of the best risotto in the world.
Signor Ruggero is the top man when it comes to risotto. His restaurant is called Trattoria al Gatto Nero and is located on the island of Burrano (the one that makes the lace - in case you were interested).
I can't even tell you how excited I was to get there and order the risotto burrano. The risotto is flavoured with these little fish that are caught in the lagoon, and it was truly amazing. I tend to get a little over excited at times when it comes to food, and how good it was, but the risotto and also the tiramisu that I had as my dessert were out of this world.
Esther followed her risotto with some beautiful cheese. The real genius with this was the pot of sweet honey served in the middle of it. The next time you do a cheese platter, get yourself a small pot of nice honey and drizzle it over the cheese just before you pop it in your mouth. It is totally gorgeous.
The last place to tell you about is a small cantina called Gia Schiavi. It was full of bottles of wine on one side, and had a counter on the other side filled with lots of differently topped crostini and antipasti. Each crostini was priced at 1 euro each and to be honest, we could have spent a fortune in there. We settled on 6 and took them outside to share next to the canal with a couple of beers. They tasted as good as they look, and as you can see from the picture below, they look pretty tasty! The one at the front, with the pear and gorgonzola was my favourite.
Venice was the perfect honeymoon destination for us, we had amazing weather, were in an incredible and magical city and ate some of the most beautiful food we have ever tasted. What a brilliant way to start our married life.
Ciao!
all food images belong to me and cannot be copied or reproduced
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