Dear Friends and Family,  

  How quickly we adapted to living in a palazzo filled with treasures, carved lions, Buddha, ancient warriors, Augustus, my favorite Roman emperor, on the terrace overlooking a secret garden. One morning we found our courtyard under three inches of water: relentless rain, high tide, full moon, the fragility of Venice. I stepped into what looked like a shallow spot and found my whole foot submerged in icy water.  We are prisoners in our palazzo, I thought. Upstairs, Steven found a pair of yellow rubber boots in the closet and went out for half a loaf of olive bread at Rizzo on the Campo San Barnaba.

    Everyone says there is no decent bread in Venice. Most of it is tasteless Styrofoam. Not this dense green-and-back olive stuffed crusty round. But it requires diligent timing. The delivery doesn't arrive at the Campo shop before 11 and might be sold out by noon, with only a few olive rolls left, like a tease. You'd think they'd double the order. But, no. That would be commerce. With determined timing, torn-off-chunks of olive bread with mascarpone-layered gorgonzola was often our lunch, with salad greens and fiercely tangy egg-shaped tomatoes from the stand in the Campo Santa Margherita.  

    By noon of the high water crisis, only small puddles were left in our courtyard. Steven gave me his arm and we navigated the slippery broken stones to our gate, off to explore.  

    There was a tall, gorgeous guy standing outside the kitchen at La Promenade des Anglais about 11 pm. I guess I stared. He grinned when I went into the men's room because the ladies' was busy. "Isn't Alain a knockout?" said our guest back at the table. I had no idea. "That was Alain Allegretti? That handsome guy? Where have I been?" Am I shallow?  I'm shallow. But I had already planned to come back to the place one day soon anyway.  In his determination to reinvent the classics of the Riviera, the chef-partner has put together a curious and compelling menu. A savvy crowd of locals has already discovered the all-day menu at the bar. The kitchen is uneven and the food can be wildly over-salted, but if you click here, you'll read why I'm eager to taste more.   

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Coming of Age at Al Covo

       
       Texan-born Diane Rankin still spends every morning baking her American-style cakes. Husband Cesare Benelli, his hair streaked with grey, is as handsome as ever, taking every order at Al Covo, a longtime favorite with travelers since it opened in l987, fully-booked now weeks ahead. I think of it as a place for the freshest seafood - Cesare has a reputation for being demanding with his suppliers. Tonight I see beef tartare, tagliata of Piemontese beef, rack of Italian lamb and credits to Slow Food Presidium on the menu.

    A pristinely fried stuffed zucchini flower, mounted on a ruffle of matchstick potatoes, has me gasping: crisp, nutty, just a touch of parmesan in the buffalo ricotta filling as its spills in my mouth. Surely the best fried blossom I've ever eaten. 

    The "Hostaria Formula," three courses for 58 euros, is a significant savings on the a la carte menu, if the entire table agrees. We do. (Though the menu does seem overly-aggressive with warnings, "gratuity not included, at your discretion" in three places.) 

    The fritto misto (9 euro supp) is huge - deep-fried scampi, calamari, baby sole (yes, a spine), baby artichoke and matchstick potatoes. Lemon noodles with spiny crab salsa is served heaped in the shell. Pistachio pesto with bottarga sauce coating outsize rigatoni, truly al dente, is the evening's triumph. I am thrilled by the heady evolution even though service falters badly on a busy night.

    At lunch the next day, the same rigatoni is majestic, bathed with creamy cod, sprinkled with just a few whole pistachios and cinnamon. "Inspired by a Renaissance recipe for cod," Diane tells us. We are at the round table with its lemony linen in the front room watching Al Covo's unique ½ pound burger "with everything" (only at lunch) criss-crossing the room. Alas, the first try is not rare (sangue) as ordered, but the second is perfect, with deliciously salty fried potato chunks in a paper cone, mustard-touched mayonnaise and the house ketchup tinged with horseradish.

    It's sacrilegious not to order dessert here. Dinner's pear and fresh blueberry cake with grappa-cinnamon sauce tasted like home.  At a table with people who seem to know when they've had enough, I was the only one still eating the bittersweet chocolate torta with its spicy chocolate sauce. Certainly I was the only one still tasting the orange hazelnut cookies.  But by daylight we are united in resisting a sweet. That's when Cesare sends out a smidgen of burrata for each and a tuile of toast. If that had turned out to be my last meal, I would not have felt cheated. Campiello della Pescharia. Castello 3968. 041 522 3812  Closed Wednesday and Thursday.

Marcella Magic at Fiaschettera Toscana

    When I reserved at Fiaschetteria Toscana I thought it couldn't hurt to mention having been there last time with Marcella and Victor Hazan, just before they left Venice for Florida. The place has remained a favorite of mine, surviving occasional rude waiters and too salty fritti.  "Marcella's friend," cries Maruccia, presenting two cheeks to be kissed.  We are seated in the English-speaking corner where a waiter translates when Maruccia can't find the word.  When the local restaurant writer Michela Scibilia joins us, bringing me the latest edition of her Venice Osterie guide in English, the extras start arriving.

    Of course I have to have the fritto misto Serenissima - delicately cooked shrimp, squid, whole baby scallops in a breaded shell - the signature dish that gives you a ceramic plate to take home (if you know to ask). I don't recall it had quite so many battered vegetables. "It's the fashion," says Michela. "One of them does it and they copy each other."

    "I remember little fish," I say.

    "Nothing with spines," says Maruccia, firmly in Italian.

    What will you have?  Liver and onions, rare, perfectly cooked. The Venetian classic, whole wheat bigoli noodles with onion and anchovy salsa. Grilled razor clams. And don't overlook the gnocchi - amazing little dumplings, they float, filling your mouth with the musk of porcini and the sweet-saltiness of cheese richly crusted under the salamander. Nor is this a place to skip dessert. Maruccia makes them all. Her tarte tatin is a must but I wouldn't want to miss the almond semifreddo. "Made with Sicilian almonds," she boasts from the table where she has seated herself for dinner. Oblivious in the corner, a couple is kissing. Cannareggio 5719, on Giovanni Gristomo. 041 528 5281. Closed Tuesday and Wednesday lunch.

***

Corte Sconta

   In years when we spent winters in Venice, I dismissed Corte Sconta as just another over-priced tourist spot. But our friend Michela insisted we should go. "Make a dinner of just antipasto," she said, calling Rita, one of the owners, to say she was sending a friend.

    Sure enough, the room - fiercely plain with bare tables and paper napkins in keeping - is larded with tourists, including a boisterous group of ugly Americans shouting across from us. But Rita's welcome is like a warm hug. The parade of starters at $27 per person, typical lagoon fare, as Michela writes in her Venice Osteria guide, did indeed show flavor flair, careful cooking and sophistication: the marinated tuna and salmon, spider crab paste with croutons and spider crab itself ("Shall I take it out of the shell for you?" the waiter asks), stuffed baby octopus, the tiny shrimp called schie in Venice, whipped mantecato cod paste on chunks of bread, and squirmy white mantis shrimp in the shell.

    Steven had been eating clam pastas all week so when a big bowl of clams in broth landed in the middle of our table, he looked bored and took just four. But what an astonishment. A just barely cooked clam. Revved up sea flavor. Wonderful, too salty broth. Our hums and murmurs finally drown out the monsters next door. Steven helps himself to a dozen more. Calle des Pestrin Castello 3886. 041 522 7024. Closed Sunday and Monday. 

    Poets and memoirists immortalize the light of Venice.  Now let me speak in praise of light in Venetian restaurants. There's no needing a miner's lamp to see your food or a flashlight to read the menu - not anywhere we wandered in our recent three weeks of rounds, except at Avogaria,a last resort on a night's plan that fell through. I remembered Avogaria from 2005, weird spot, rather expensive. Murky. Brick walls, black paneling. Brocade cushions. Tonight, almost empty. At first a bustle of service from a slim and stylish maitre d'. Then a meager pour of wine in a meager glass without giving me a taste. I watch a kid, five maybe, amusing himself with a cell phone - maybe an online game - as his parents linger endlessly chatting till near 11. Tried to imagine a New York tot similarly docile, stretched out on a banquette, or under the table tranquilized by a cell phone.

    I like the napkin-wrapped vegetable tempura we share; cleanly fried, needing a salsa. Both pastas are remarkably good too, though Steven can't quite finish the excess of tiny meatballs on his tomato-tinged spaghetti, nor I, all the slivered veal inside my oven-browned pasta package billed as "lasagna" on the English menu. We pay the 77 Euro check and steal away. No thank you. No goodbye. I won't send you there but if, like us, your friend cancels dinner because she tripped on her new Doc Martens and is having her lip sewed up in the emergency room, and the pizza place that's always open is closed for "mourning" and there are three couples ahead of you at the local, consider it an option. Calle dell'Avogaria 1629 Dorsoduro 041 29 04 91.              

***

Wine Opus Two 

    My friends Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg have caught me by surprise again with their latest, The Food Lovers Guide to Wine (Little, Brown $35). I hope they'll forgive me but I am going to confess that I have begun to find my long time friends, dare I say it? Increasingly boring. Endlessly working, always on deadline, editing and re-editing, never available for a restaurant reviewing jaunt.  I'm at my computer seven days a week too but I pull myself away at 6 and go out to dinner. When they said they were writing something, something, another something about wine, I didn't say what I thought. Like after their prize-winning best seller What to Drink with What You Eat what is there left to say?  I happen to be a carefree primitive. For me, wine is Red.  (Unless someone is pouring a vintage white Burgundy, then I'm in.) I often chose a wine by price - from the el cheapo list - and I usually drink a glass of something I like that goes well with everything I'm tasting that evening. If I'm ordering a bottle, I enlist the sommelier in finding me his best bargain.

    So while I noticed my two pals were occasionally out-of-town, dashing off to Alsace and Napa and communing with foreign winos, I simply wasn't prepared for this amazing book, richly studded with the passionate musings of sommeliers, exhaustingly encyclopedic. Turn to "P" for Petite Arvine from Italy and Switzerland..Did you know? Do you care? You will never need to ask again. They have collected the confessions and poetic musings of wine makers, wine-lovers, wine seller confidantes, with a toast to Julia and quotes from early Paul Bertoli and Alice Waters.  How to choose a wine by style. 150 wines under $15.  It's here. Like the best of encyclopedias, it compels me to just keep dipping in. What can they possibly do next?  I'll drink to that. 

 ***

The photographs of Augustus in the garden, Carnevale, The artic char at Promenade des Anglais, Al Covo's fritto misto, Rigatoni with pistachio pesto, Lemon crab pasta in the shell, Maruccia Busatto, Fiaschetteria Toscana's ethereal gnocchi, The antipasto at Corte Scanta, and a lasagna "package" at Avogaria may not be used without permission from Steven Richter.
        
              Fork Play copyright Gael Greene 2011.