Bacari in Venice on a tight budget
Three friends, one day free, a trip to Venice. The challenge: to eat and drink in as many bacari as possible with an extremely limited budget of 20 euro each.
What are bacari?
Bàcari are small bars found in Venice serving wine and little bites to eat, called cichetti, and a little glass of house wine is called an ombra, which means shadow. The legend is that there used to be a little mobile stand in Piazza San Marco, where they sold wine under the shadow of the tower in the square. As the sun moved across the sky, the little stand would move to take advantage of the shade, thus the word ombra, signifying the little glass of wine served on the cooler side of the square.
Another story is that long ago ombra was an actual form of measurement, equal to one tenth of a liter. Later, it came to mean a very small amount, so back in the day when only men would go out to drink, the husband would come home with wine on his breath, and he would tell his wife he only had an ombra.
Our budget
Bacareto Da Lele
Our first stop was Bacareto da Lele, not far from Piazzale Roma. This tiny shop is usually swarming with guests, but was relatively quiet in the Covid atmosphere.
We ordered 3 ombre and 3 nice sized panini, two with porchetta and one with roast beef and our bill was 5.10… rounded off to 5.00 for all three of us.
Our Scorecard
Vote from 1 to 5, 5 is the best
Ambience 3.6
Taste 3.6
Value for money 4.6
Total: 3.9
Spend per person € 1.66
Cicchetteria Da Luca e Fred
The next stop was Cicchetteria da Luca and Fred, near the Guglie bridge not far from the Jewish Ghetto area.
Here we had 3 glasses of wine and two skewers.. one with 4 battered shrimp balls, and one with two potato pancakes (like tater tots, yum!)
Our Scorecard
Ambience 5
Taste 5
Value for money 5
Total: 5
Spend per person € 2,66
Frito-Inn
On the way to our next stop we came across Frito-in: a fritolin is dialect for a shop that only sells fried fish served in cones. A cone of little fish, fried on the spot was 6 euros but we asked for a half size to stay within budget. Super crispy and fresh! Three people could easily feast on a cone for 6 euros and be fully satisfied.
Cantina Vecia Carbonera
The next official stop was Cantina Vecia Carbonera, a lovely bar that is quite large and shaped like a boat inside: the rooms are labeled cabin 1, 2, and 3. Here you order a cicchetto and ombra at the bar, then you take it to your table.
Our Scorecard
Ambience 5
Taste 5
Value for money 4
Total: 4.6
Spend per person € 2,33
Trattoria Antica Adelaide
Our next stop was to my friend Alvise at a trattoria called Antica Adelaide. We found out that we can get an ombra here for 1 euro so we had one each.
Our Scorecard
Ambience 5
Taste 4.6
Value for money 4.3
Total: 4.6
Spend per person € 1.00
Rosticceria San Bartolomeo
Now it was time to eat something filling. We went to Rosticceria San Bartolomeo, near the Rialto bridge. We had two huge mozzarella in carrozza, deep fried mozzarella with anchovy in one and prosciutto in the other. It was more than enough for the 3 of us…
Our Scorecard
Ambience 2.6
Taste 4.3
Value for money 3.6
Total: 3.5
Spend per person € 3.03
Cantinone già Schiavi
A couple places that we wanted to visit were unexpectedly closed due to Covid, so we will not mention them in this post. Our next stop was Cantinone Già Schiavi out near le Zattere.
Here we still had a nice bit of money left so we splurged with a nicer glass of wine and a little cicchetto each.
Our Scorecard
Ambience 5
Taste 5
Value for money 4
Total: 4.6
Spend per person € 3.83
Chet Bar
Now, after 7 places, we still had money left, so we headed to Campo Santa Margherita to Chet bar and had 3 spritz. We didn’t order cicchetti here, but they had really good potato chips!
Our Scorecard
Ambience 4
Taste 3.6
Value for money 4
Total: 3.8
Spend per person € 3.00
And the winner is…
With a perfect score of 5!
And we are winners, too!
We beat the challenge, spending a total of € 55.60 or € 18.53 each