Venice Cicchetti

Yes, we did a ciccheti tour last October but I cannot recommend the ciccheti crawl tour recommended in the RS Guide led by Alessandro. Go by yourself to the recommended bars, order an ombre & whatever looks good to you, and visit several different places. Or look for a different tour. But the one recommended in RS was terrible-tge guide was burned out, incredibly rude & clearly couldn’t wait to be done with us.

Thx We were planning on doing it on our own. Was going to try and compile a list of some places to hit. Once we know where our RS tour hotel is I’ll start looking.

We were in Venice this weekend. There were cicchetti pubs all over the place- you really can't miss them. We struggled with the timing, though, tbh. We were eating big, late lunches and then getting a drink or two by the water in the early evening. By the time we tried to find cicchetti, places were either completely packed or they were closed. (Many places seemed to close by 7:30, which shocked us). This weekend was very, very busy with Venice- lots of college students in the evening, maybe on a school break? One place that we particularly liked (more of a restaurant/ pub that serves cicchetti) was called Pane Vino e San Daniele Rialto. We had a hard time finding a place where we could sit and had given up when we found it, just down the street from our Airbnb. It was excellent and seemed to have a mostly local (or at least Italian) crowd. The menu was in Italian only but our waitress helped us out. All of the cod dishes were great. One of our friends is vegan and they even made a special vegan cicchetti plate for her.

I followed Rick Steves self-guided cicchetti tour and finding each place was not that easy nor did I eat anything outstanding. Cicchetti hour does not last long and I still wanted more to eat.

I have to agree that RS recommended Alessandro cicchetti is not necessary. We took the tour a few years ago and felt it lacked authenticity and enthusiasm. Our son took the tour back in August and agreed.
Meanwhile, during our wonderful visit earlier this month we frequented Enoteca Schiavi on the San Trovaso canal in the Dorsoduro. The friendly family runs an outstanding wine shop/bar with inexpensive wine, spritzes and cicchetti. The place was packed every night spilling out onto the moonlit canal. Highly recommend.

Travel Junkie, I'm curious what you mean about Alessandro's tour lacking "authenticity." We took the tour a few years ago, and every stop was a tiny hole-in-the-wall place where we seemed to be the only tourists.

We took Alessandro's tour last October and absolutely loved it. We went on our first evening in Venice and it was a great introduction to the city and cicchetti. We went to some fascinating, out of the way places that we would not have discovered on our own. We were with a fun, interesting group of people (there were about 8 of us). Alessandro was amusing and warm and after several glasses of wine as the tour progressed, even more so. He might not be everyone's cup of tea, but we enjoyed him immensely and found the tour a perfect antidote to jet lag.

My friend and I took Allessandro’s tour in 2016 and enjoyed it very much.

Larry B. I have this on my list as well. It sounds like so much fun and we plan on just trying to do it on our own. Thank you for asking another excellent question.

Thx Jill we are probably going to do it on our own also. Once we find out where our hotel is we will be able to check out what’s fairly close. Maybe we do it together also. Lots of them seem to be close to the Rialto bridge. I’m sure our hotel will be within a 5 minute walk of that area.