Sorry, my friends made the booking and we ended up not going, so I don’t know where they’d planned. I know at the hotel when I asked about a jazz club near by, they were very dismissive of whatever it was because it was crowded, noisy and not very good.
So, as to where we ate:
While waiting for my friends to arrive, I had some cicchetti at Bacarando in Corte dell’Orso. I snagged the last table so was comfortable and had great people watching. The cicchetti were fine, and the prosecco was quite good, so it filled the bill.
When my friends arrived at the hotel, we had a late dinner at the attached Taverna La Fenice. We’d not anticipated how fancy the place would be for Valentine’s Day, so felt very underdressed, but the service could not have been more gracious. The food was good, if not spectacular.
We had lunch the next day at Adriatico Mar, probably my favorite meal. The cicchetti offered a lot of variety and was fresh. Local families seemed to be eating there and again we snagged the last table. Lively and inexpensive for the quality.
Later in the day we had a snack on Piazza San Marco. Yes, stupidly expensive, but a great spot for people-watching. Dinner that evening was at Vineria all’Amarone, which was quite good.
The next day we viewed a Carnavale boat parade from the Accademia Bridge, then had lunch at the Moro Cafe next to Palazzo Franchetti (now a museum). The food was good, service was spotty because they were overwhelmed when the parade finished, and the setting is spectacular. Dinner on a warm evening in the courtyard would be heavenly.
Dinner that night was at Bacaro e Trattoria da Fiore (the front half of the restaurant is the bacaro (standing room only), the back half is the sit-down, casual restaurant). The food was good as was service. I had the sarde en saor and thought there was too much sarde and not enough saor.
The next day we had lunch at AMO at the Fondaco dei Tedeschi department store (after visiting their rooftop viewing area [reservations only]). It was convenient (my friends were getting the train that afternoon so we didn’t want to waste time looking for somewhere), comfortable, and the food was good.
That night, I had dinner again at Taverna la Fenice where I was quite literally the only diner! So the service was great and the food (calves’ liver a la Veneziana) was what I expected (tender, not too strong, but not enough onions!)
I have to say that while we didn’t have any memorable meals, we also didn’t have any terrible ones or ones where we felt ripped off.
