There’s no doubt that Venice is one of the most beautiful and unique cities in Italy, but it’s not the easiest place to eat well. Tourists outnumber residents here, so there are lots of tourist traps that cater to them. If you want to eat like the locals do, you have to know where (and what) to eat in Venice.
Venetian cuisine tends to focus on the fresh seafood fished from the lagoon, which is not necessarily the kind of fish you’ll find in the sea. Local specialties include softshell crabs (when in season), risotto with black squid ink, sarde in saor (sweet and sour sardines), and baccalà mantecato (whipped codfish). You’ll also find vegetables native to this part of Italy, such as castraure (the first, prized buds of the purple artichokes that grow on the island of Sant’Erasmo), radicchio di Treviso, and squash.
Venetian restaurants tend to be small and the good ones book up in advance, so be sure to make reservations ahead of time, especially during major events like the Biennale. If you find yourself without reservations and in need of a bite, you can always go to a bacaro for cicchetti (we have a whole guide to them here). When we want to sit down for a proper meal or a drink, these are the places we like to go, in alphabetical order.