Best Places For Cicchetti In Venice, Italy september 27, 2021 – Posted in: Italy, Travel – Tags: Food, Holiday, Italy, Restaurants, Reviews, Vacation, Venice
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Where to eat cicchetti in Venice?
Venetians love their ombra and cicchetti (pronounced tji-ket-ti), a glass of wine with a little snack. Cicchetti is consumed around the clock, and it’s oay to start the day at 10 pm with this snack set.
Here you get our recommendations to the best ciccetti place in Venice – and other bàcari, wine bars that are definitely worth a visit too! The wine bars below are included to give you an overview of the large selection, but you don’t have to run around town to visit them all. In Venice you can eat cicchetti everywhere!
What is cicchetti?
The Venetians’ favorite snack is often a small slice of bread with cold cuts, cheese or fish, but it can also be the small polpette (fried meatballs), marinated anchovies or just a slice of mortadella. Some cicchetti are quite simple, while others are highly topped luxury sandwiches!
When you stand at the counter trying to choose, you should definitely pick a piece of bread with baccalà mantecato, a puree of cured fish, stirred with olive oil, salt and pepper. If there is also a cicchetti with sarde in saor, you have to try this Venetian classic. The sardines have been pickled in a sour / sweet brine with raisins and pine nuts. Finally, you should also just taste a piece of burrata cheese reminiscent of mozzarella in both taste and texture.
The price for one cicchetta is between €1.00 to €2.50, depending on the type and size, and start by ordering 3-4 pieces. They are more filling than they look.
Cichetti is eaten standing at the bar with an ombra de vin, a glass of red or white wine or prosecco. Incidentally, ombra means “shadow” and refers to the time when wine merchants moved their stand around with the shadow from the bell tower to keep it cool. If you are more into Spritz, it’s perfectly okay to one for your cicchetti.
Where to eat cicchetti?
You can – thankfully – eat cicchetti all over Venice. You can usually find them in a bàcari, one of the city’s many wine bars, but they are everywhere you can get a drink. We could easily have tried many more ciccetti places, but in fact it only turned into two. Partly we only had 3½ day in Venice, and partly we just had to return to Cantinone già Schiavi, where we ate cicchetti the first time.
Here you will still get a list of places where we can recommend that you go and eat cicchetti. However, it’s the first two bars we have tried ourselves. We have also made you a small list with recommendations for the many places we kept coming across again and again as we researched for great chiccetti places in Venice.
Bàcari in Venice where you have to eat cicchetti
In Cantinone già Schiavi nothing has changed from that time, when only the locals came by to drink a small glass of wine in the middle of the day. Behind the counter stand the three brothers and the grand cichetti master: the white-haired Mama who routinely conjures up the little works of art in an endless stream.
Cantinone, where the photo at the top is from, is located in Dorsodure right down to the small San Trovaso canal. Many tourists just walk by, on their way to see one of Venice’s last gondola yards, the squero di San Trovaso. But you have to stop right here and taste one of those little miracles!
We stumbled upon La Cantinetta in Santa Croce by chance one afternoon where we were just about to have a little snack before dinner. In Venice, of course, you should also drink a Bellini, which was invented at the legendary Harry’s Bar. You can read more about this here: What should you eat in Venice? The delicious aperitif with peach and prosecco is fortunately available everywhere in the city, and here at La Cantinetta they make it to perfection. The luxury cicchetti it was served with is also worth a go!
Recommended by others
In addition to Cantinone già Schiavi, there were several other cicchetti places that also kept popping up as we researched for our culinary trip to Venice. We just have to emphasize that we have not eaten there ourselves, but there are many others who have! We’ll forward the recommendation here, also to make a small to-do list for places we should visit next time we come to Venice.
All’Arco was praised by Trine’s sister who had eaten there a few years ago, and also by many other tourists. We would have loved to visit it, but unfortunately we didn’t find the time. In the small bar you get cicchetti of a really good quality – and then it’s inexpensive! You will find it right by the Rialto Bridge.
Osteria al Squero is located right next to the Cantinone già Schiavi, opposite the gondola lift. During both of our visits to the other bar, we also walked past Osteria al Squero, and it looks really good. If there is no room at Cantinone già Schiavi, you can safely proceed to this place.
Cantina Do Spade has been on the same location since 1488. Inspired by the nearby Rialto Market, the Munarini family specializes in fish dishes.
Cantina do Mori, also on the Rialoto Bridge, is the oldest tavern in Venice, dating to 1462. History tells us that this was where Casanova used to take his conquests on the first date. Cantina do Mori is popular with both Venetians and tourists. The selection offers more than 150 different wines as well as delicious cicchetti.
Al Merca just off the Rialto Bridge is probably the smallest bar in town. Reportedly, however, it’s packed with locals, especially students who come for the reasonable prices.
More tips for your holiday in Venice
Where to stay in Venice?
There are many wonderful hotels in Venice, but where is the best place to stay? On Booking.com you can see the large selection of hotels in Venice, and in the article Where to stay in Venice you can read more about where in Venice you should book your holiday. There are several romantic hotels for couples on the list, and you also get a really good tip if you are on holiday in Venice with kids.
You can also do your own search on Booking.com for a good hotel in Venice right here:
A recommendation: Hotel Al Ponte Mocenigo
Hotel Al Ponte Mocenigo – click here to read more!
Hotel Al Ponte Mocenigo is a perfect setting for a romantic holiday in Venice. The hotel is located right in the heart of Venice, away from the tourist crowds and with a vaporetto station (San Stae) down the street. Otherwise, the Rialto Bridge is only a seven minute walk away and St. Mark’s Square a quarter of an hour.
The small boutique hotel has just 10 beautiful rooms, all decorated in Venetian 18th-century style with exposed ceiling beams, damask curtains, large chandeliers and soft beds. In the morning, the hotel offers a wonderful breakfast in the small courtyard, serving eggs and bacon, crispy croissants and most importantly: great coffee!
See more good hotels here: Where to stay in Venice
How do you get to Venice?
Venice has two airports: Marco Polo Airport, 10 km from the city center, and Treviso Airport, 40 km north of Venice. If you land in Treviso, there are airport buses to Venice all day, which cost 12 euros (2021) for a single ticket. Read more here: Treviso Airport Shuttle Bus.