Alright, let’s get back to the Italy meal reports. I only have three more to go, I think. Two from Milan and this last one from Venice, which features our lunch on the day of our second visit to the city. As with our other lunches in Venice and Padua, this was a meal centered on cicchetti. On our first visit to Venice we’d stopped at a random place (Bacaro Risorto) and had a pretty good lunch. The next day we ate even better cicchetti at Frascoli in Padua, a restaurant that had been recommended. Our third cicchetti outing was at a very well-known place in Venice, Cantine del Vino gia Schiavi. In keeping with the trajectory of the meals, this was easily the best of three. Here is a quick look at what we ate.

Located in the Dorsoduoro district, right by a canal, gia Schiavi is a small place—or so you might think if you’d not eaten at Bacaro Risorto: it’s several times larger than that. It’s a combination wine bar, wine shop and cicchetti counter. The main action happens in the larger outer room; there’s another room inside where wine tastings seem to happen—though you can also eat at the counters there. Regardless of where you eat, you eat standing up after you order your cicchetti at the counters up front and pay there. There’s a very large selection. Most things are labeled (in Italian). If you’re not sure what things are and it is crowded when you’re there, it’s best to just point at things that look attractive and ask for them. Otherwise you might strain the patience of the staff member helping you with too many questions. Or you can always use Google translate if you’re not sure what a word means. But if you’re omnivorous and not allergic to anything you can’t go very wrong being guided just by your eyes. After three weeks in Italy we recognized a lot of the names of ingredients and let our greedy eyes decide the rest.

What did we get? To start a platter of 10 cicchetti for the missus and me. The boys had a large panino each; one with prosciutto and one with porchetta. The first round of cicchetti included the following: cuttlefish with salcornia or glasswort; 2x octopus terrine; herring and caramelized onion; shrimp with asparagus pesto; cocktail onion and anchovy; ham with sauteed greens; soft cheese with trout roe; cucumber stuffed with bacala etc. and sweet and sour shrimp. This was not a meagre amount of food but we felt it would be rash and probably dangerous to not get another platter of 10. On this second platter were: cheese and pumpkin; marinated artichoke heart; scampi mousse; smoked salmon with mascarpone; boiled egg with black truffle and mushroom; brie with nettle pesto; baccala (I think); tuna salad with leek; tuna salad with horseradish; and their famous tuna salad dusted with cocoa powder.

Highlights? Too many to mention. Go, point, eat.

For a closer look at the space and what we ate, click on an image below to launch a larger slideshow. Scroll down to see how much all of this cost and to see what’s coming next.

Oh yes, I had a glass of pinot grigio. The boys had a soft drink each. I believe my wine cost less than their soft drinks. The total for these drinks, 20 cicchetti and two large panini came to all of 41 euros. Which is well past the border of ridiculousness for the quality/value. To be clear, I’d recommend them at twice the price.

Alright, we’re done with meals in Venice and Padua. We had actually been looking forward to dinner at a market in Padua at an informal stall that specializes in octopus and other seafood but just our luck, they weren’t there that evening (and we were told by another stall that they hadn’t seen them in a few days). We ended up picking up cold meats, bread, cheese etc. from a few other stalls and eating it all at home.

Two more Italy reports to come, both from Milan. One of this was not an Italian meal. Might have that up tomorrow. Let’s see.