My feelings about Venice are mixed. On the one hand, it's a unique and beautiful city. On the other, it's even more packed with tourists than Florence. Or at least it seems that way; the actual number may not be higher, but in Venice they're constrained by the city's being built on islands separated by canals, and everything's being out in the middle of a lagoon. To get around one can either take the vaporetti, the watery version of a city bus system, or one can walk, and if one walks one must cross bridges, which perforce become bottlenecks where people rub shoulders.

And as you're inching forward, hoping nobody steps on your toe, you'll suddenly realize that you're not hearing much, if any, Italian. German, Japanese, lots of English, but not much Italian, and much of the Italian you do hear is not local, but rather spoken by Italians from elsewhere. Tourists, in short. Nor do you see much in the way of food shops -- we found one supermarket, where most of the customers were tourists like us, buying fruit and stuff to drink -- or people lugging shopping bags. For that matter, most of the people who were lugging their shopping were middle aged to elderly, and we saw few Venetian children (by comparison with the number of Florentine children one sees at this time of year).

What this all means is that not that many people actually live in Venice -- the majority finds it more convenient to live in Mestre, the city on the mainland, and commute into town to work. Why? Housing is more convenient, and if one decides to restructure the work is cheaper (in Venice materials are brought by barge and ported by hand). It's easier to shop -- most of the stores in Venice that we saw cater to tourists. There's no winter flooding to deal with. And finally, it's much easier to have a car in Mestre, where one can park on the street, than it is to have one in Venice, where there are two parking garages served by the vaporetti.

The surrender of the city to tourists and office workers has had a dreadful effect on eating in Venice, alas. Though I did give some restaurant suggestions a couple of years ago, this time we picked and chose depending upon where we happened to be, rather than going to the restaurants I knew of, and the results were uniformly disappointing. Venice has glorious culinary traditions, but the menus all featured humdrum pan-Italian cuisine, with pizza everywhere, followed by pesto, cotoletta alla Milanese, stewed mussels, and fish risotto, among other things. There were a few nods to local tradition, in particular sarde in saòr (sardines in a sweet and sour sauce; see below) and seppie nere alla veneziana (cuttlefish stewed in their ink), but the classic risi e bisi with which the Doges greeted spring was harder to come by.

Had the food been well cooked, it would have been all right, but with one exception in Piazza Santo Stefano it was merely adequate; obviously the owners figure there's no need to go to great lengths, because with most of the Venetians off on the mainland the chances of a repeat customer are nil -- by tomorrow today's customers will be gone and there will be a new set to take their place. To make matters worse, the customers are captive -- what tourist is going waste hours venturing into Mestre to eat -- and therefore the hostlers can provide uninspired food at exorbitant prices because theirs is the only game in town. In short, meals in Venice were the low point of our trip, and I suggest that when you go you either plan your day to be near one of the few really good restaurants come mealtime, or drop into one of the few supermarkets and buy yourself sandwich fixings, and save your money for a good dinner on the mainland.

If you are on the mainland, say Florence or Rome, try venturing out of the tourist zone and into the residential areas to select a place to eat. Since they do depend upon repeat customers, the food will likely be much better.

A presto,
Kyle Phillips
Webweaver, About Italian Cuisine

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