The restaurant is renowned for serving the finest fried fish in the region, impeccably fresh seasonal ingredients, and "Il Duca," a burly waiter blessed with a remarkably powerful voice. Ettore, the restaurant's longest-serving waiter, began recounting the characters who had shaped his childhood—the now-vanished figures of Venice's cucina di calle. ("Calli" are Venice's narrow streets, and by "cuisine" we mean the bounty the lagoon and its islands have always provided.)
In short, old Venice concealed a delicacy around every corner.
The Street Vendors of Campo San Filippo e Giacomo
In Campo San Filippo e Giacomo, just a stone's throw from St. Mark's Square, you would find the Limonaro and the Capalungaro. The former sold lemons one by one, slicing them in half upon request—a welcome convenience, since right beside him the Capalungaro would pull sweet, tender cape lunghe (razor clams) from an old sack. They had been caught only moments before and were still alive. He would briefly pass them over the flame of a candle before serving them on sheets of newspaper. Having the Limonaro next door made perfect sense.
Sweet Treats in St. Mark's Square
In St. Mark's Square wandered the Melacottaro and the Peracottaro. Two elderly gentlemen, hardly known for their sobriety, who roamed the piazza grumbling about the pigeons while carrying heavy copper cauldrons suspended from simple leather straps. One sold poached apples, the other poached pears, each skewered onto little wooden sticks. These old-fashioned treats can still be found today at Rosa Salva, Venice's historic pastry shop, which also lays claim to having invented the tramezzino.
The Folpettari of Castello
Along Via Garibaldi in Castello worked the folpettari, a tradition that lives on today at Il Folpettaro in Padua's Piazza della Frutta—no coincidence, perhaps, that it was named Italy's finest street food in 2015. The folpettari sat beside enormous cauldrons where octopus simmered away. Once cooked, they chopped the octopus into bite-sized pieces, removing the eyes and beak before dressing it with olive oil, salt, pepper, lemon, and parsley. The sauce was known as aqueta because it quite literally made your mouth water.
The Legendary Fritoini
The fritoini were impossible to miss. Some operated from tiny shops fitted with serving windows opening directly onto the calli, where customers could grab fried seafood to go—the old vecio fritoin behind Campo San Cassian, later revived by Pierre Cardin, kept this tradition alive. Others roamed the streets with baskets balanced on their knees. These fryers served nothing but fish, tucked into paper cones ready to eat. Venice, it seems, was teeming with them. Street food had become the city's practical substitute for home cooking.
Moeche: Venice's Seasonal Delicacy
Among these fryers, one seasonal specialty stood above the rest. In spring and autumn came the Moecare: elderly women who, with practiced hands, dipped live moeche—the tiny lagoon crabs that shed their shells twice a year—into batter before frying them. The crabs were carefully caught during the brief window before their new shells hardened, making it possible to fry and eat them whole. It is a delicacy found only in the lagoons, and nowhere more famously than in Venice. The traditional preparation can still be enjoyed at La Madonna, in Calle della Madonna, and at Vecie Carampane.
The Passerei: Masters of Sole Fishing
On the islands of the Lido, Sant'Erasmo, and Torcello—where a visit to Locanda Cipriani is almost obligatory—you would once encounter the Passerei. These islands are laced with tiny canals teeming with little soles known as passerini, supposedly because they dart through the water like sparrows through the air.
The Passerei would sit along the canal banks with a large pan of sizzling oil for frying the fish and a wooden bench where they drained before serving. Their fishing technique was mesmerizing. Perched at the water's edge, they wielded long, slender, sharpened poles that they hurled into the canal like spears, almost unfailingly emerging with a sole. But, as the old saying goes, "un botto solo e seco, xenno' se riempie de sabion"—one swift, clean strike straight through the fish, otherwise it fills with sand.
A Taste of Nostalgia
Ettore's stories did not end there. He spoke of the boats bringing mussels and clams from the shallow lagoon beds to be eaten raw like oysters along the quays; of the Sant'Erasmo artichoke sellers offering cooked artichoke hearts and castraure, the island's prized first buds, through the city's cobbled streets; of elderly women carrying baskets of homemade biscuits—peppery peverini, delicate esse, and cornmeal zaeti—and of the aciughetari, who wandered the streets with crates of salted anchovies and unleavened bread slung over their shoulders.
In short, these streets have witnessed a remarkable parade of good food.
After listening to the old waiter, smiling as he conjured up a vanished Venice, stepping into Do' Mori—the city's oldest bacaro—that morning left me with a curious feeling. As I bit into the day's first crostino topped with whipped salt cod, I couldn't help but savour a quiet sense of nostalgia. It seemed only right to raise a glass to it—the defining ritual of this absurd yet sublime city that, only a few centuries ago, was nothing more than water and raw fish.
