Re-thinking the Cuisine of Venice....Dishes to Go Back For

My post from a couple weeks ago about the abysmal state of dining in Venice, Italy drew some interesting responses from folks who had actually dined quite well in Venice, thank you very much.

 

One longtime colleague of mine, Scott Joseph, who was restaurant critic for the Orlando Sentinel before launching his own Web site, had me drooling over a plate of fritti -- the lightly breaded and fried wisps of "whatever" that the Italians do so well. In this case, it was breaded and fried wisps of a delicate local fish. Joseph wrote that Victor and Marcella Hazan of cookbook and cooking school fame, had taken him to Fiascheterria Toscana for this memorable treat. I’m kicking myself that I missed it. (Coincidentally, we did find an extraordinary fritto misto on our last night in Rome at Ristorante Matricianella.  A rolled paper cone was piled with bits of broccoli, artichoke, potato balls, mozzarella and more, each morsel wondrously light and delicious.)

Another friend sent me a clipping, from the Boston Globe, that raved about a grilled monkfish dish at Antica Locanda Montin. This family-run eatery in the  Dorsoduro neighborhood has been in business since 1950.  Neither the decor (pictured below) nor the  monkfish preparation has changed in the past 30 years or so. The story’s author, Joan Wilder, describes how the  meaty tail of the fish (which some fans swear tastes like lobster) is grilled with lots of olive oil, salt and pepper. I’ve always been a monkfish fan, so I’m  kicking myself about this miss, too.

 

Lastly, I appreciated the Comment on my post from San Diegan Lisa Wilson-Wirth who  raved about  La Calcina, “an extraordinary B&B”  that’s owned by La Piscina, one of the (pretty good) restaurants that we did find in Venice. During dinner on the restaurant terrace (on the magical Zattere waterfront), I remarked that La Calcina looked very charming but I knew nothing about it.  Now I know where I’ll stay when I return to the city called La Serenissima to eat all the good food I seem to have missed.