Cantina Do Spade

About Cantina Do Spade

Cantina Do Spade is one of Venice's oldest osterie, and the historical record suggests that Giacomo Casanova drank here when the city was still a republic and the Rialto market was the commercial engine of Mediterranean trade. Whether or not the story is apocryphal is irrelevant; the atmosphere makes it entirely plausible. The narrow calle outside, the low-ceilinged room within, the smell of wine and oil and preserved fish — these are not carefully constructed period details but the genuine residue of centuries of use.

The cicchetti are made properly and served at the counter for standing consumption in the Venetian tradition. Bigoli in salsa — the thick Venetian pasta with anchovy and onion that was eaten in the Rialto for centuries before anyone in Rome had considered a bolognese — is the kitchen's signature and one of the finest expressions of that dish in the city. The sarde in saor and the baccala preparations are honest and consistently excellent. The ombra di vino is poured from decent local bottles at prices that remind you this is still, in some meaningful sense, a working osteria.

For solo dining in Venice, Do Spade offers something increasingly rare: a place that serves Venetians and treats visitors as welcome participants in a tradition rather than as customers to be processed. The room can accommodate seated dining for lunch or dinner, and that option — bigoli in salsa and a litre of house wine, eaten in a room that Casanova may have used for similar purposes — is as good as Venice gets at the $$ price point.

Practical Information

Also Great for Solo Dining in Venice

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