When photography becomes art

The term “photography” derives from Greek and it means “writing with light”. It was born mainly to reproduce and show things as they are at an exact point of time and only in the XXth century it started to be considered as an art, passing from a simple mean of description into a mean of expression.

Some pictures in fact do not only represent what the framed object is, but they’re also able to make the spectator feel a special emotion. Through his pictures, a good photographer is able to capture and transfer a particular feeling or his point of view, to tell a story .

Among these “artists of light”, I would quote Fabio Bressanello, who runs his showroom and shop in Venice (Dorsoduro 2835/A, in front of the Ponte dei Pugni).

With his black and white or coloured pictures, Fabio is able to express strongly the beauty of peoples or landscapes or the peculiarity of a certain moment or event. His pictures, which sometimes look like paintings, are able to catch a fragment of a story and make the viewer be part of it.

Venice by Fabio Bressanello

Looking at his masterpieces, people can feel a large variety of emotions: melancholy, tenderness, solitude, happyness, astonishment, sweetness.

Believe me: they won’t let you impassible.

Bressanello Art Studio
Venezia, Dorsoduro 2835/A

https://www.facebook.com/bressanelloartstudio

Not only “cicchetti” at Mondo DiVino

Venice is famous for its “bacari” (sort of wine bars) which offer the “cicchetti” (typical tapas and finger food).
The most popular cicchetti are the “polpette” (fried meat balls), the “sarde in saor” (sardines cooked with onion and raisins), the “baccalà mantecato” (stockfish cooked with milk): almost all Venetian bars offer such specialities.

There are a lot of good bacari in town, but my favourites are Mondo DiVino, Do Mori and Ponte dei Pugni.

In particular, at Mondo DiVino, you can enjoy lots of typical cicchetti but also many other appetizers. My favourites are the stuffed vegetables (aubergines, zucchini or peppers), the spicy goat cheese rolled with speck, the croquettes with potatoes and ham.

The bacaro “Un Mondo DiVino” – Outside

Like in many other bacari, you can accompany the good food with a glass of wine selected among a wide variety of labels.

But, differently from many other bacari, here you can also enjoy the smile and kindness of the owners: Andrea and Claudia (brother and sister).

The bacaro "Un Mondo DiVino"- Inside

The music played there is also very agreeable.

The best place to have an aperitif or a quick lunch!

Osteria Un Mondo DiVino
Cannaregio 5984 A, Salizada San Canciano
30121 Venezia
Tel. +39 041 5211093
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Still looking for new in Venice? Try the Orto dei Mori restaurant

As I’ve already said on my post about Luna Sentada restaurant , in Venice it is not easy to find a restaurant that differs from the others, nor for the location nor for the menu.

Yesterday night I found another place which I can definitely say is really unique, in the style and in the food too!

I’m talking about L’Orto dei Mori, a small restaurant which is sited in the house where the famous painter Tintoretto was born and lived.

The area is really quiet, tucked away from the tourist traffic, and the restaurant, through its big windows, offers a wide view on a canal, on one side, and on a typical Venetian small square (Campo dei Mori), on the other side.

Il ristorante L'Orto dei Mori - esterno

The outside sign defines the place as “Osteria”, but L’Orto dei Mori is faraway from being a simple osteria. The wine cellar is certainly well equipped and it offers a big variety of good wine, but the location, the food and the dish presentation are refined like in a “high-cuisine” restaurant.

Inside, the restaurant is furnished in a stylish and original way. The curious lamps hanging from the ceiling are the ones designed and made in a small artisan shop of Venice, called “A Mano” (Rio Terà Amalteo, San Polo 2616).

Il ristorante L'Orto dei Mori - interno

The cuisine is positively influenced by the Sicilian provenance of the chef but it also proposes some traditional Venetian specialities. Another positive note is that the menu includes both fish and meat dishes, while in Venice most of menus include only fish. The food is absolutely tasty and it served by a smiling and polite staff.

A perfect combination of taste, style and service!

L’Orto dei Mori

Cannaregio 3386

30121 Venezia

Tel. 041/5243677

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Calle dei Fuseri: the right street for shopping

It’s quite usual that shops concentrate mainly in some streets of a city. Via Veneto in Rome, Via Montenapoleone in Milan, Calle Larga XX Marzo in Venice: here you can find all “big brands” flagship stores.

Apart from these renowned avenues, there are some other streets where a lot of “minor” but  interesting shops are sited. In Venice, Calle dei Fuseri is one of these streets.

This street, which derives its name from the job corporation of the foundrymen, is full of little nice shops where you can buy fashionable clothes and accessories.

At nr. 4466 and nr. 4459 you can find the fashion stores Amina MI and Paolo Pecora, the first for women and the second for men, quite similar to each other in location and clothes style. Here you can buy very particular fashion items, unfortunately not at cheap prices. At Amina MI you can find the beautiful “Pandorine” bags, with which I’m really in love!

A "Pandorina" bag sold at Amina MI

Calle dei Fuseri ends with a “branch” called “Ramo dei Fuseri” where, at nr. 1810, an amazing shop is located: Pot Pourri. The shop deserves a visit only for the vintage atmosphere you can feel both from the window and inside.

With its little terrace on the canal, where romantic dresses are staged among candles, and its sixties style clothes and accessories it makes you feel like you’re in a fairy tale or in a movie!

Some pictures can explain the special ambience you can enjoy here:

 

Calle dei Fuseri: the right choice for shopping!

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A hot tea or soup to warm the winter up

There are some places which are able to surprise you with their simplicity and warmth.

The tea room Caffè Orientale (Oriental Coffee) is one of these places. There you can really find an oasis of peace and intimacy. A perfect corner to have a cup of tea while reading a book or to meet an old friend you haven’t seen for a while (as I did some days ago!). Or just to stare at the pictoresque canal outside.

At Caffè Orientale, a large selection of quality teas and infusions is carefully prepared and served with an extreme kindness. You can accompany your tea with a delicious home-made dessert, choosing among apple pie, English scones and other “grand-mother style” cakes. I tried the “apple-scrumble”, a sort of hot pudding with apples, cinnamon, millet and cream: unforgettable.

Here you can also enjoy a light lunch or an early dinner (they close at 9 pm), as they also serve some tasty vegetarian dishes and hot soups: “ribollita toscana”, chickpeas soup, tomato rice soup. Taste one of these plates together with their “schiacciata” (pizza paste with oil, salt and rosemary) and Caffè Orientale will become your little happy place, where to recover from the daily stress and bustle.

Caffè Orientale
Santa Croce 888, Rio Marin
Venezia

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Venice: so crowded, so desert

This morning a friend of mine, who came to visit me here in Venice, asked me: “Now that you’ve been living  in Venice for a while, what would you say you like most here? Did you discover something you didn’t expect?”.

My answer was the following: “Venice is able to surprise me every day. But the thing I like most is that you can always find a desert corner even in the most crowded period of the year. And now that I know the city better, I know where to find these corners!”.

In these last days of October, also due to the bank holiday of November 1st, Venice has been really crowded, more than during Biennale Art Exhibition opening days. This is also thanks to the warm and sunny weather which is unexpectedly delighting us in the last days. Despite the overflowing mass of people, Venice can offer some special palces, where you can really enjoy its mystic atmosphere.

On Saturday I was walking with my boyfriend near to our house, in the “Zattere” area, wandering without a precise itinerary. While the Zattere way was full of people striving to enjoy the last sunny warmth, we happened to find a special place which made us feel like we were in a fairy tale.

The pictures can speak on their own:

We’re in the Dorsoduro District, along the “Fondamenta Bonlini”, near the San Trovaso church and the San Trovaso “squero” (one of the last remaining places where the gondolas are produced). It’s a kind of magic, isn’t it?

Am I foolish to share this with you?

At last, the pizza I like in Venice!

Looking for a good pizza, I tried different places in Venice, but so far I wasn’t able to find the perfect place (see my post “Looking for a good pizza in Venice?“).

A few days ago, by chance, I tried he pizza at Pier Dickens Inn in Campo Santa Margherita. And the trial turned out to be a nice surprise!

Campo Santa Margherita is full of  restaurants, but they all looked too much “touristic” to me. Some of them even have waiters outside trying to get you in … a thing I do really hate and one of the reasons why I usually exclude the place from my whitelist!

But, on that day, I was going back home from work at dinner time and, like many other times, I wouldn’t have got a decent dinner out of my fridge! So I opted for a take away pizza.

Instead of buying it at the take-away place in the Campo (Pizzeria Al Volo), I decided to try one of the various pizzerias you can find there. I chose the first one you meet coming from san tomà/Campo San Pantalon: the Pier Dickens Inn.

Pier Dickens is a pizzeria but also a restaurant and brewery. It has numerous tables in the outside where you can enjoy the intense nightlife of the Campo (hundreds of young boys and girls gathering for a chat and a spritz).

Pier Dickens Inn at night

I do not know if I will ever try the cuisine of this restaurant, but I do know that here I had the best pizza I ever had in Venice so far.

Thin, light, crunchy and tasty: the perfect mix for a pizza! It was so good that I went there again only 2 days after!

Good job!

Pier Dickens Inn
Campo Santa Margherita – Dorsoduro 3410, Venezia
Tel. +39 041 2411979

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Anice Stellato restaurant: a look inside the authentic Venice

Venice is all about walking. To reach every place you need to walk more than what you expect. The bridges make the way much longer than what it seems in a map.

This is, on one hand, very good for the health and also for the digestion (I call the trip between restaurants and home as the “2-bridge-digestive”!), but on the other hand it sometimes prevents you from discovering some areas which are a little bit faraway from your home or work place.

That’s why it took me 6 months since I live in Venice to go to the Anice Stellato restaurant, which was more than once recommended to me.

The restaurant is located near to the Jewish Ghetto, in the north side of Venice, where tourists seldom venture, especially in the night, even if it is where they could experience the “authentic Venice”.

Anice Stellato is sited on a Fondamenta (that’s how the streets along a canal are called in Venice) where you can hear a lot of Venetian people passing by: a true look inside the city.

The Fondamenta (street along canal) where Anice Stellato is sited

The restaurant is nice, even if a little too dark for me and the food was really good. Here you can taste typical Venetian food and cicchetti (appetizers). I was impressed by the “sarde a beccafico”, rolled sardines stuffed with raisins, aromatic herbs and pine-seeds. The menu includes almost entirely fish dishes but you can find also few meat proposals. The price is quite fair and the atmosphere you can enjoy here and in the nearby area is really fascinating.

The only negative aspect was the service: too slow! Recommended only if you’re not in a hurry!

Anice Stellato
Cannaregio 3272 – Fondamenta della Sensa
Venezia
Tel. + 39 041 720744

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Vini da Gigio: full marks!

When I moved to Venice, I asked all my friends living here to recommend some good restaurants. Silvia, a schoolmate of mine who has lived here for long time, suggested me a restaurant called “Vini da Gigio”.

In the last months I tried several times to reserve a table at this restaurant but every time I was told they were fully-booked. Going there became a sort of challenge! I also sent there some of my clients who were very satisfied with it so my curiosity kept growing up!

At the end, some weeks ago I was able to book a table for 2 and I had dinner there with Alberto, a friend and former-colleague of mine. We really had a beautiful evening. The food and wine were excellent, the place really nice and the price fair! That’s my place folks!

The entrance of Vini Da Gigio restaurant

Since my evaluation could have been influenced by the fact that the dinner was delighted by the exquisite company of Alberto and 3 glasses of white wine (definitely too many for me!), before electing it as my favourite restaurant in Venice, I wanted to test it a second time.

So, a few days ago, I brought there my parents and my boyfriend. My mom is a really good cook so her rating is highly qualified. Her response confirmed mine: A+!

Vini Da Gigio is strong on Venetian tapas such as crocchette di baccalà (breaded stockfish) and canestrelli alla griglia (grilled razor clams); there are also a number of good meat and game options and delicious desserts (try the tiramisù or the strawberrieas with peppermint and mascarpone cream).

As the name suggests (meaning Wines at Gigio’s), wine is another forte – there are even bottles from Australia and South Africa, and there is always a good by-the-glass selection.

Now I can definitely say it: Vini da Gigio is my favourite restaurant in Venice! So far (the research continues …).

Vini da Gigio
Cannaregio 3628a – Venezia
Tel 041/5285140

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Osteria San Marco: not a big risk although in Saint Mark’s area

When a tourist asks recommendations on where to eat in Venice, he’s often told to avoid the Saint Mark’s area and the restaurants with view on the Grand Canal. In fact, places in these areas are usually too expensive compared to the quality of food and service.

I myself tried two of the most renowed restaurants near Saint Mark’s square (Do Forni and Antico Pignolo, see my post on April 15th) and I was unsatisfied with them. Indeed it is hard to find a restaurant with a good quality-price ratio in this zone.

Fortunately there are some exceptions to the rule. The osteria and wine-bar San Marco is one of these exceptions.

Opened in 2002, thanks to the parthership of 4 friends, Osteria San Marco was an old inn transformed into a restaurant and wine bar. The renovation was aimed at creating a place with both an easy and elegant mood and it was successful! The atmosphere here is in fact sophisticated but not too much formal.

Osteria San Marco

And the food is really good! At the Osteria Enoteca San Marco the menu is defined in order to please every taste: meat and fish, game and sea food and vegetables plates are influenced by the tradition and the new frontiers of cuisine. In constant research and use of high quality raw materials, menus are updated according to the season and the market offer. Together with excellent food, clients can enjoy a glass of wine selected from a menu that includes more than 300 varieties.

 

The price is not the cheaper in town, but it not excessive considering that you’re two steps away from the most famous square in the world!

Osteria San Marco
San Marco, 1610
30124 Venezia
Tel. 041 528 5242

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