Venice

A tiny counter behind Rialto Market. The room itself is older, but the Pinto era starts in 1996, when Francesco took over; his son Matteo joined later. Three crostini to order: raw tuna with lardo, soft-boiled egg with anchovy, baccalà mantecato. €2 each, €4 for the prosecco, eaten standing in the calle.

A Dorsoduro family bacaro across from the gondola workshop, three De Rossi generations: a glass case of about 40 different crostini (tuna with cocoa, gorgonzola with pear, sarde in saor, pâté with truffle). Take your glass and plate to the canal wall and watch the gondolas being repaired across the water.

Open since 1462 behind Rialto Market: copper pots on the ceiling, no seating, a working-man's wine list (Casanova reportedly drank here). The francobolli (postage-stamp-sized tramezzini filled with crab, salami, mortadella) are the speciality, eaten by the dozen. Closes 7:30 p.m., closed Sundays, cash preferred.

A shoebox-sized counter on Campo Bella Vienna behind Rialto, no seating, and mini-panini at the counter (porchetta, mortadella with pistachio, soppressa with smoked scamorza). €2 each with a Select spritz (Venetian preference, not Aperol); stand in the campo between 11–1 or 6–8 and repeat.

Directly across the canal from Squero di San Trovaso, the working gondola repair yard. Get an ombra (€1.50–2), a baccalà mantecato crostino and a polpetta, and sit on the stone steps watching gondolas get their hulls scraped across the water.

A 15th-century bacaro near Rialto, reportedly in Casanova's little black book: the polpette (beef and salami with smoked scamorza) and the fried calamari. Excellent regional wine list (Rabosos, Soave classico); order at the counter for bar prices. Open till 10 p.m., which is late for a bacaro.

The new-Venetian bacaro on the Misericordia aperitivo strip: a blackboard of natural wines by the glass (organic, biodynamic, plenty of orange wines and obscure Veneto/Friuli varietals) paired with cicchetti that lean modern (burrata with anchovy and lemon, beef tartare, smoked tuna). Stand inside or take your glass across the fondamenta to the canal.

Twins (zemei in Venetian) Franco and Giovanni Tagliapietra on Ruga Vecchia San Giovanni; photos of other twins line the ceiling, and the crostini rotate daily (radicchio with smoked goat cheese, mackerel with apple, baccalà mantecato with chestnuts). Order the Select spritz.

A San Polo window on Campiello dei Meloni: chef Alvise (a former fine-dining cook who reset to do this) fries fresh lagoon seafood to order in scartossi (paper cones) with a slab of grilled polenta at the bottom to keep everything hot. €5–10, eaten standing in the calle or carried to a fountain campo; cash easier than card, closed Sundays. Phil Rosenthal filmed here.

Open since the 1930s off Campo San Bartolomeo (follow the neon sign): the rosticceria to hit when you don't want to dress up, self-service ground floor with fried mozzarella sandwiches, baccalà fritto, arancini, sarde in saor. Mozzarella in carrozza with anchovy is the order; stay downstairs; upstairs is the same food at a higher price. €15 buys a full lunch, excellent value for Venice.

Twenty seats in a Castello alley, hand-painted bed-headboards (testiere) on the walls, chef Bruno Gavagnin and Luca Di Vita running the room since 1993. Menu changes daily with the Rialto catch; the razor clams in garlic and herbs and the gnocchetti with spider crab are the orders. Two services (7 p.m. and 9:15 p.m.); book three weeks ahead by phone or email; Resy is not happening here.

A canalside Cannaregio trattoria opposite the old Jewish Ghetto, named for the spice route that brought star anise into Venice: a hint of cumin in the pasta water, curry on the octopus, never enough to overwrite the Venetian base. The fegato alla veneziana is the dish to order; the grilled octopus is the universal table order. Sit outside in spring and autumn; open Tuesday through Sunday (12:30–10pm), closed Mondays.

San Polo's beloved seafood hideout, an unmarked calle near Ponte delle Tette: a door sign that famously reads "no pizza, no lasagna, no tourist menu." The spaghetti alle vongole veraci uses the small Venetian clams; the fritto misto for two is the table order; the soft-shell crab (moeche) is a spring and autumn dish. Book weeks ahead.

A one-Michelin-star modern Venetian in Castello. Salvatore Sodano's menu is all lagoon: cuttlefish-ink risotto, branzino aged in seaweed, sgroppino reinvented as a palate cleanser. Two tasting menus (six or nine courses) plus à la carte; jeans-and-blazers welcome, wine pairings excellent. Closed Tuesday and Wednesday.

A one-Michelin-star restaurant inside a walled vineyard on Mazzorbo (off Burano): the Bisol family replanted the ancient Dorona di Venezia grape and built an inn around it, and chefs Chiara Pavan and Francesco Brutto cook tasting menus from the orchard, the lagoon, and the Burano fishermen. Take the vaporetto out, eat over four hours, sleep upstairs, return on the morning boat.

A 40-year husband-and-wife operation in Castello: Cesare Benelli buys every fish himself at Rialto each morning, Diane (from Texas) runs the room. The black ink-stained cuttlefish over polenta is the dish; the tiramisù is the dessert to order. Diane tells you what to drink, in English. Closed Wednesday and Thursday.

The Spezzamonte brothers' Dorsoduro natural-wine restaurant: Alberto buys at Rialto each morning, Dario runs the floor and a 600-bottle list organized by producer instead of region (the giveaway). Short daily menu anchored to the lagoon and Sant'Erasmo vegetables; the room has been filling with university faculty, gallery types, and off-shift hotel concierges since 2014. Closed Tuesday.

A Michelin-starred kitchen on a quiet rio in San Polo: Andrea Martin and Max Rossetti out front since the '90s, chef Valerio Dallamano cooking vegetable-forward modern Venetian, terrace tables under actual wisteria from April through June (book the terrace then, only then). Six- or eight-course tastings, no à la carte; the matzo meatball with mustard and onion is the surprise, the Sant'Erasmo radish course the loved one. Reserve three weeks ahead.

The Michelin-starred dining room directly above Piazza San Marco: Alajmo family kitchen (same as three-star Le Calandre in Padua), Philippe Starck redesign in dusty pink, gold, and Murano glass. Contemporary Venetian: rice with seven kinds of garlic, lagoon shrimp in tomato water, langoustine with bergamot. €230 tasting (lunch from €130); book a window table; the music from the cafés below comes up through the floor. Closed Mon and Tue.

Two Michelin stars, at Enrico Bartolini's outpost inside Palazzo Venart, with day-to-day chef Donato Ascani, magnolia courtyard, Grand Canal steps away. Cooking rooted in the lagoon and the Sant'Erasmo gardens, guided by the morning market. €220 tasting menu (lunch a notch under); book three weeks out, closed Mon and Tue.

Sixteen seats in Castello (5 min from the Arsenale, on a calle most maps skip): chef Claudio De Lauzieres (Neapolitan) cooks Venice-meets-Naples Slow Food, partner Claudia runs pastry. Three-course set menus from €52 (Vegetable Garden) / €62 (Lagoon or Land) / €68 (Claudio's "Let me do" freehand, table-wide); the caprese cake is the dessert to order, the cassata the one to know about. Reserve a week ahead, two for weekends.

A garden-courtyard seafood trattoria in Castello behind an unmarked door on Calle del Pestrin: a tiled courtyard under a wisteria pergola and a parade of twelve to fifteen seafood antipasti (raw scampi to baby octopus to salt-cured mackerel) before a pasta (spaghetti with bottarga is the classic) and a fish second. Two-and-a-half hours easily. Reservations essential; closed Sun, Mon, and most of August.

A husband-and-wife trattoria on Campo dell'Angelo Raffaele in Dorsoduro, with three traditions on one menu: Venetian fish, Friulian cured meats (the San Daniele prosciutto sliced thin enough to read through), and Sardinian touches from the owners' second home (their own wine and oil from there). Outdoor tables on the campo in spring and fall; reserve a few days out.

Giuseppe Cipriani opened the bar in 1931 but didn't invent the Bellini until the summer of 1948: fresh Venetian white peach purée with Prosecco, named for the pink in a Giovanni Bellini Renaissance painting he'd seen at a Doge's Palace exhibition that same season. Sit at the bar rather than a table; table service adds a surcharge. The Bellini is best March–September, when white peaches are in season. €27.

The Cannaregio aperitivo anchor on Fondamenta dei Ormesini: a wooden boat moored out front doubles as outdoor seating in warm months, where you take your glass and plate and post up. Solid wine list, good cicchetti, a Fiorentina on the menu if dinner becomes an option, live music two nights a week in summer.

A 19th-century café next to the Frari Basilica reborn as a cocktail bar: seasonal menus organized around a travel theme (Marrakech, Tokyo, Mexico City) with drinks built from those ingredients. Small room, low light, jazz. Reserve after 9 p.m.; closed Mondays.

The people's bacaro: a closet-sized standing bar near the train station, mini-panini at €1 each (cheese, salami, mortadella, vegetable spreads) and wine from €0.80 a glass. Half student, half construction worker, all standing in the campo out front. Cash only, no seating, 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.; the first or last ombra of the trip, depending on direction.

The Experimental Group's Venice outpost inside Il Palazzo Experimental on the Zattere, with its own quiet canal-side entrance: Cristina Celestino interiors built on polychromatic marble countertops and torchon rope mouldings, a sober nod to Carlo Scarpa. The list leans Italian spirits, Cynar and Select and grappa, worked with technique from the group's Paris and London bars. Open Thursday to Monday, 6:30 p.m.; reserve for weekends, room seats thirty.

A small Venetian-owned operation two minutes from Rialto, opened 2010. The flavours rotate weekly around Italian dessert classics (tiramisù gelato, salted pistachio with dark chocolate, butter biscotti with vanilla). Order the Manet (chocolate-hazelnut topped with salty pistachio cream); come at 11 a.m. or 4 p.m. to skip the summer line.

On the Zattere promenade since 1937, four family generations, and the Gianduiotto da passeggio: dense gianduia gelato dropped into a cup of whipped cream, walked along the promenade with the Giudecca canal on your left and the sun on your face. Heavy, ridiculous, the signature. Same prices on the cocktail menu if you'd rather a spritz; open till 11 p.m. in summer (closed Thursdays in winter, doors close 8 p.m. off-season).