Venice in winter exudes a timeless quality. Walking the narrow streets, I find myself thinking, can this really be the year 2000? For here—where the sound of water lapping against palazzi is as it always was, where mists shroud the canals and narrow streets as they always have—it could be 1700, or even 1500. The very stillness evokes agelessness: Richard Wagner spent some of his winters here because he believed that only in the city’s silence could he hear music. Winter is the only time of year when la Serenissima is, indeed, serene. Aside from the week between Christmas and New Year’s—and the week of the annual Carnevale (this year, from February 26 to March 7), when mayhem erupts—life is tranquil, just as the citizens like it. And it is only now that you will find restaurants, cafés, and wine bars filled with Venetians. The rest of the year, they retreat into their homes, taking refuge from the tourist stampede, so the fair-weather visitor misses a crucial element of life in Venice: To be in Venice without Venetians is to know the city’s stones but not its soul.
Venetians are heirs to the legacy of the 15th-century republic of Venice: its musical language, its sense of fun, its fierce love of both self and the inimitable cucina of the region. In winter its classic dishes are prepared with the greatest of care and, more important, foods appear that are never seen on a menu turistico. You might even come across a gondolier, dining out with his family, singing not for money but for the pure love of singing.
True Venetians eat all day. A cappuccino and a sweet bun in the morning tide them over until just before noon, when they might take a glass of wine and cicchetti (snacks of fish, meat, or vegetables). By late afternoon, when the last of the winter light has waned, they’re back to the wine bar for a glass of Prosecco and another little snack. Then there’s supper at nine and later, somewhere between eleven and midnight, a coffee or a grappa with friends. How do most Venetians stay so trim and fit despite all this? They walk everywhere.
I have been a regular visitor to Venice since 1973, and when I want to eat out, I go where the locals go. But my first stop is always at a personal favorite, Pasticceria Dal Mas. Although it’s on a very touristy street, not far from the train station, it remains authentically Venetian. My order is invariably an espresso and an Arlecchino (as in Harlequin, the Commedia dell’Arte character), a wedge of cake with layers of chocolate, white pastry cream, golden cake, beige nut cream, more chocolate, and so on. It puts me in a Venetian mood.
Later on, la dolce via continues at Pasticceria Didovich, where, standing, I have a light lunch of the house specialty: a palm-size vegetable quiche. To my mind, two or three of these with a glass of Prosecco make a perfect meal. (And if the quiche with red radicchio is on the menu when you visit, do not fail to order it!) Then I treat myself to strudel, Sachertorte, linzertorte, or little pastries filled with jam or sweet cheese—the sort of pastry that might seem more at home in Vienna or Budapest (not so surprising when you remember that in the 19th century Venice was under Hapsburg rule for almost 70 years).
Another holdover from the Austrian occupation is the Venetian love of panna montata (fresh whipped cream). You will find it all over town, but I go to Hostaria da Zorzi, near Piazza San Marco. To my mind, an incomparable seasonal sight is the short, stout, fur-swathed Venetian ladies standing at the bar with a platter of whipped cream in front of them. Each diminutive matron is given two ice-cream cones with which to gather up as much cream as possible. I’ve yet to learn how they manage so efficiently—I always manage to get more cream on my nose than in my mouth.
At Ponte delle Paste, you can get a cup of hot chocolate topped with fresh whipped cream and, in winter only, frittelle veneziane (fritters filled with either pastry cream or zabaglione). You will see frittelle all over town, but few are this good. Nearby is Pasticceria Colussi, an austere little bakery offering classic Venetian dry cookies such as bussolai, baicoli, and zaletti; frittelle, of course; and also little cakes. Here the focaccia (or fugassa, as it’s known locally) is not the usual Italian bread of flour, salt, and oil but a sweet, eggy, lemony cake, cousin to the Milanese panettone, without the candied fruit.
Finding wonderful food in Venice is more difficult than locating lovely pastries. The overwhelming onslaught of tourists over the past 15 years has turned gastronomic Venice into a tired old courtesan who mindlessly dispenses her favors with barely the suggestion that pleasure could be part of the transaction. The absolute low end of this unfortunate phenomenon is, of course, the ubiquitous menu turistico—spaghetti with canned clams followed by a greasy fry-up of scraps of seafood. Avoid it at all costs.
The scandalous high end, on the other hand, is found at Harry’s Bar. Here the downstairs room is convivial and full of regulars, but tourists are relegated to a drab upstairs room where the walls are covered with puckered fabric and only the most perfunctory regard for either the food or the diner. After my Bellini (where—the question still niggles—did they find fresh peach juice in winter?), I ordered spider crab, which came with too much shell carelessly left in, followed by an only so-so house risotto and parched sea bass fillets with greasy artichokes, then a piece of dull apple pie. With my meal I had a mineral water, a very ordinary white wine, and a cup of coffee. For this “classic” Venetian experience I paid an outrageous 352,400 Italian lire (about $200).
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