Venice Bacaro Wine Crawl

In 1462 Cantina Do Mori opened near the Rialto — and hasn't closed since. The tradition it joined was already 200 years old: workers and merchants stopping for an ombra, a shadow of wine, named, the story goes, because sellers followed the shade of San Marco's Campanile to keep their barrels cool. The cicchetti you'll eat here — creamy baccalà on polenta — are made with the dried Arctic cod that Pietro Querini, a sea captain shipwrecked in Norway in 1432, is credited with popularising in the Veneto. A fish market, four bacari and an optional Bellini. One city that has been drinking wine standing up, in alleys, since the 13th century.

What to do there

6 things to do

1. 1 Watch Venice Feed Itself at the 1097 Market Adventure · Free

   Where: Rialto fish market (Pescheria), northwest bank of the Grand Canal in San Polo — walk across the Rialto Bridge from the San Marco side and turn right toward the loggia, the columned hall right on the water.

   What: This market has been running since 1097 — nearly a thousand years of Venetians buying fish off boats on this exact canal bank. The elegant loggia you're standing under was designed in 1907 to replace an iron canopy. Every Tuesday through Saturday between 7 and 10am, boats unload directly from the Grand Canal while chefs from every restaurant in the Rialto cluster negotiate over moeche (soft-shell crabs), branzino, and whatever the lagoon offered up that night. The cicchetti you'll eat in the next hour came off one of these boats.

   How: Arrive by 7:30am. Walk the full length of the loggia slowly — look for the stalls selling tiny grey shrimp (schie), razor clams, and the live crabs in wooden crates. You'll spot chefs from nearby bacari doing their morning shopping. Watch what they pick up — that's what's going on the counter at 10am. Don't buy anything. The point is to taste the source before tasting the result.

   Backup: If you arrive after noon, the fish market (Tuesday–Saturday, 7:30am–noon) has closed, and so has the fruit and vegetable Erbaria (Monday–Saturday, mornings only). Walk to Do Mori first and return to the market the next morning.

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2. 2 Drink an Ombra Where Legend Puts Casanova History · Price: low

   Where: Cantina Do Mori, Sestiere San Polo 429. From the Rialto market, walk two minutes south through the narrow market arcade — look for the dark entrance into a low-ceilinged room. There are two ways in: Calle Do Mori and Calle Galiazza. Both lead to the same counter.

   What: You're standing in one of Venice's oldest bacari. Open since 1462 — that's 564 years of continuous drinking in this room. The name 'Do Mori' (Two Moors) may refer, the story goes, to two Moorish men who served at the counter centuries ago. Look up: the ceiling is hung with dozens of copper pots, collected over generations. Legend says the young Casanova brought his conquests here — he lived a 10-minute walk away. Local lore credits the two entrances to his visits: quick escape, the story goes, was the point.

   How: Step to the bar. Say 'un'ombra di bianco, per favore.' You'll get a small glass of local Soave or Pinot Grigio. This is the ritual — standing up, one small glass, conversation with whoever's next to you. The story goes that the ombra was named for Venice's wine sellers, who followed the shadow (ombra) of San Marco's Campanile to keep their wine cool. In the story at least, you are drinking the shadow of a bell tower.

   Backup: Cantina Do Mori is closed Sundays, and so are the fish market, All'Arco and Schiavi, so on a Sunday the crawl shrinks to Cantina Do Spade (step 3, open daily from 10am) and Harry's Bar (step 6). On Mondays the bacari open but the fish market does not. The full crawl works Tuesday to Saturday.

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3. 3 Find the Back Room Where Legend Puts Casanova's Exit History · Price: low

   Where: Cantina Do Spade, Calle de le Do Spade, San Polo 859. Three minutes from Do Mori — ask anyone to point you toward 'le do spade.' The name comes from the Do Spade sign, first hung in the late 1400s as the emblem of the innkeepers' guild; local lore tells of a duel between two noblemen on a nearby bridge.

   What: This place has been an osteria since 1448. That's 578 years. In Chapter 17 of Casanova's memoir 'The Story of My Life,' he describes descending on this exact tavern after midnight during Carnival 1745 — he and seven friends in masks, ordering wine in the back room. Guidebook lore says the back room has a back door so Casanova could slip out unseen if a husband arrived. An earlier owner, Giorgio, reopened the room.

   How: Walk to the bar, order 'un'ombra di rosso' and two cicchetti — try the sarde in saor (sweet-and-sour sardines with raisins and pine nuts, a Venetian preservation technique from when fishermen needed food to last weeks at sea). Then ask the bartender: 'Dov'è la sala di Casanova?' — 'Where is Casanova's room?' Watch them point you through a low doorway. Look for the secondary exit: a small door in the back wall. This is the door of the story.

   Backup: If the back room is closed for a private event, the main bar tells the same story — look for the 'Do Spade' sign above the entrance, an emblem the tavern traces to the late 1400s.

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4. 4 Taste the Cicchetto Venice Ties to a 1432 Shipwreck Wine · Price: low

   Where: All'Arco, Calle Arco, San Polo 436. From Do Spade, walk north back toward the Rialto market — All'Arco is in a side alley one block from the market's vegetable stalls. Look for a small red-on-white sign and a crowd standing in the street eating.

   What: The creamy white paste on every piece of crostini here is baccalà mantecato — whipped salt cod on polenta. Venice ties it to a shipwreck. In April 1431, a Venetian sea captain named Pietro Querini sailed from Crete carrying 800 barrels of Malvasia wine bound for Flanders. A storm in the English Channel destroyed his ship and pushed him north on the Gulf Stream into the Arctic. Of 68 men, sixteen reached the Lofoten islands and only eleven survived. Fishermen on the Norwegian island of Røst showed them their cod, air-dried until it was hard as wood, which they beat and ate with butter. Querini made it home, and his voyage is credited with starting Venice's stockfish trade. That's the fish in the dish you're eating.

   How: This is a morning-only bacaro (closes 2:30pm) run by Francesco and his son Matteo. Arrive early — the cicchetti are freshest before noon. Point at the baccalà mantecato crostini (€1.50–3). Also try the polpette (meatballs). Order 'un'ombra di bianco' to wash it down. Standing only — no chairs, no table service. This is exactly how it has always worked.

   Backup: If you arrive after 2:30pm, All'Arco is closed for the day (and it is closed all day Sunday). Go directly to Cantina già Schiavi (step 5), which has cicchetti until 8:30pm, Monday to Saturday.

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5. 5 Order the Spritz Locals Actually Drink — Across from the Last Gondola Boatyard Wine · Price: low

   Where: Cantina già Schiavi (also called Al Bottegon), Fondamenta Nani 992, Dorsoduro (Monday to Saturday 8:30am–8:30pm, closed Sunday). Take a vaporetto from the Rialto stop to the Accademia stop, then walk south along Fondamenta Nani — you'll see a wall-to-ceiling display of 500 wine bottles in a window opposite a working gondola boatyard across the canal.

   What: On the opposite bank is the Squero di San Trovaso — one of Venice's last working gondola boatshops, built in the 17th century, where gondolas are still hand-built and repaired. You're standing in a 19th-century bacaro with 500 wine labels on its walls. Now: the test. Ask for a spritz. If they hand you an Aperol Spritz without asking, you're drinking the tourist version from Padua. The Venetian original is made with Select — created in Venice (Castello) in 1920, 30 botanicals including juniper and rhubarb, less sweet, more herbal. Say: 'Vorrei uno spritz con Select, per favore.' That sentence alone tells every Venetian at the bar that you know.

   How: Order the Select spritz (€3–5) and two of their daily cicchetti — the menu changes constantly and is some of the most creative in Venice. Stand at the canal-side railing. Look across at the gondola boatyard. This is a view that hasn't changed in 200 years.

   Backup: If Schiavi is crowded and you can't get to the bar, ask to see their wine wall instead — 500 labels, mostly Italian, with prices for take-away. It's the best wine shop in the Dorsoduro.

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6. 6 Drink a Bellini at the Bar That Invented It Wine · Price: very high · Optional

   Where: Harry's Bar, Calle Vallaresso 1323, San Marco. Walk from the Accademia along the Grand Canal promenade toward San Marco — Harry's is in a small alley one block before Piazza San Marco, on the right.

   What: Giuseppe Cipriani created the Bellini here — white peach purée and Prosecco — and the bar dates it to 1948. It is named after the 15th-century Venetian painter Giovanni Bellini, whose exhibition at the Ducal Palace ran from June to October 1949. The peachy glow of the cocktail matched the glow in Bellini's paintings. Cipriani only served it June–September when white peaches from near Verona were in season. Hemingway drank here in 1949–50, though his order was a very dry martini. Charlie Chaplin drank here. In 2001, the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage declared this bar a National Landmark. A Bellini will cost €22–35. You're paying for 78 years of unbroken recipe.

   How: Sit at the bar rather than a table (marginally less expensive and you can watch the bartenders work). Order a Bellini. It will come in a short, straight-sided glass, like a juice glass, pale peachy-gold. Smell it before you drink. The ratio is two parts Prosecco to one part white peach purée — no ice, never ice. Ask the bartender: 'Is this the same recipe from 1948?' They will tell you it has not changed.

   Backup: If the €25 Bellini is too much, standing at the bar for a Prosecco (€12) gives you the room and the story without the price. Or skip Harry's Bar and end the bacarata at Schiavi with a second Select spritz watching the gondola yard at dusk.

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