Venice’s best food & drink

Cicchetti are Venetian tapas, tasty morsels to whet the appetite and soak up a glass of wine or two. They are traditionally served in a bacaro (wine bar), which also offers wines by the glass; Venetians eat cichetti before lunch or dinner, usually standing at the bar. A plate of cicchetti is one of the cheapest ways to fill up in this expensive city; 6 or 7 make a light meal, and at an average price of €2, along with a glass of inexpensive local wine, that’s a bargain.

A fun way to enjoy this tradition is to plan a tour of different bacari, tasting a couple of cicchetti in each. Expect polpette (fried meat balls), baccalà mantecato (creamed salt cod), a whole variety of weird and wonderful seafood, and lots more.

Dating from 1720, world-famous Florian’s is a jewel-box of a café, all mirrors, stuccoes and frescoes. Join the locals perched at the bar rather than pay way over the odds for a table seat where a simple espresso is likely to set you back €10.

A perfect place for foodie gifts, this deliciously retro grocery shop sells a fabulous range of exotic spices, dried fruits and mushrooms plus wines, olive oil and vinegars from all over Italy. The range of coffees and teas is also excellent.

For a special lunch on a beautiful garden terrace, hop over to Torcello and this iconic restaurant; Ernest Hemmingway and Princess Diana were fans. People come for the peaceful, bucolic setting as much as the food – pasta with scampi and seabass with artichokes, maybe.

Venetians have shopped and haggled at this food market on the banks of the Grand Canal since 1097 AD. It’s a mosaic of stalls piled with aubergines, tomatoes, vats of artichoke hearts and (under the arched Pescaria) a zillion varieties of wriggling, glistening fish.