With the Biennale opening a month earlier this year, to coincide with Milan’s World Expo, Venice is expecting a visitor overload. But that doesn’t mean they have to resort to overpriced, underwhelming tourist restaurantsThe quality of food served in Venice has improved a great deal over recent years. Chefs are using more fresh local produce and, with a little effort, it is still possible to find reasonably priced meals costing about €15 a head all over town. The best deals are definitely on offer at lunchtime, while in the evening, more and more informal bàcari (bars) are opening up alongside the more traditional ones, where you can try cicheti, small snacks or “Venetian tapas”.
Trattoria Alla Rampa
Miraculously, corners of Venice remain unchanged by the tourism that bustles through most of the city. At the end of Via Garibaldi, moored on the canalside, is one of the last fruit and vegetable boats in town, and right in front of it, with its ancient hand-painted sign, is the venerable Trattoria Alla Rampa. Life starts early for the working men living around here, so the Rampa opens at 4.50am. The bar is run by Fabio Fontebasso, while his sister, Fabie, cooks an ever-changing menu of Venetian dishes using fresh, seasonal products. Lunch is served in a rustic dining room at the back, and from 12pm to 12.45pm there is a €13 menu’operai, a fixed worker’s menu of pasta, main course, wine and coffee. “If there is space,” says Fabie, “then tourists can sit down and order too, but normally it is packed out and a second a la carte service begins at 1pm.” Specialities include a delicious zuppa di pesce, spaghetti alle vongole, risi e bisi (Venetian rice and peas) and seppie in tecia (squid cooked in its own black ink served on a bed of polenta). Pasta €10, main dishes around €14.
• Via Garibaldi 1135, Castello, +390 41 528 5365 , lunch only, closed Sunday
Al Bottegon
With the perfect location on the San Trovaso canal in chic Dorsoduro neighbourhood, this is a legendary bàcaro (an osteria in the local dialect), beloved by academics from the nearby university and a colourful crowd of expats. It is a packed, stand-up bar, there are no tables, but there is an excellent selection of regional wines, though everyone comes for the cicheti kept behind the glass-topped bar. For 50 years, Alessandra de Respinis – the queen of cicheti – has been creating her recipes like an alchemist: creamed pumpkin with ricotta and parmesan, a swordfish tartare sprinkled with cocoa powder, smoked tuna with parmesan and a julienne of leeks, pesto Genovese mixed with mascarpone, ricotta and topped of with a sundried tomato. Each day she prepares a tempting 60 different cicheti to choose from, and at €1.20 each, half a dozen make for a hearty lunch.
• Fondamenta Nani 992, Dorsoduro, +39 041 522 7911, on Facebook, closed Sunday
Le Spighe
Near the lush garden walkway that leads into the Biennale of Art, the Spighe is an oasis of healthy eating, offering organic, vegetarian and vegan fare, created by the bubbly Doriana Pressotto. She believes in l’energia of her food, feels that everything she cooks should be eaten by the end of the day, and chooses eight unique dishes to prepare each morning. On any one day you could find a rich pumpkin soup with leek, cauliflower and sage, basmati rice with bitter puntarelle, courgette and marinated tofu, crunchy buckwheat smothered with a tangy hummus, seaweed risotto, and red cabbage flan. From late morning until early evening the deli’s tables are full, while you can also take away for a picnic. The formula is simple – choose your dishes, everything is weighed and a full plate comes to €10-€12. There is even a choice of organic non-sulphite wines, and Doriana makes her own range of pasta for people to take home.
• Via Garibaldi 1341, Castello, +39 041 2750148, closed Sunday, on Facebook
Trattoria Dalla Marisa
This old-fashioned trattoria is a Venetian institution that has been serving delicious traditional dishes at affordable prices since it opened in 1965. It is packed to bursting every lunchtime with a noisy mix of workers in overalls, students from the nearby architecture faculty and curious tourists; you can sit inside the cosy oak-beamed dining room or grab a waterside table and watch boats pass by on the busy Canale di Cannaregio. This neighbourhood used to be the site of Venice’s abbatoir, and Marisa made a reputation for nose-to-tail cuisine with dishes such as risotto con le secoe, using beef bone marrow. Today, her daughter Wanda runs the kitchen, still making favourites such as tripe stew, but also rich ragu sauces and tasty roast rabbit. The lunchtime menu is dominated by meat, and for €15 you can feast off a steaming plate of pasta, one of the dishes of the day, vegetables, wine and coffee. At night, the speciality is seafood, though expect to pay around €35 a head.
• Fondamenta di San Giobbe 652B, Cannaregio, +39 041 720211, open every lunchtime, Thu-Sat evening by reservation
Osteria Alla Ciurma
The morning Rialto market is the liveliest part of the Serenissima, where locals come to do their food shopping and stop off for a drink and bite at one of the bars in the maze of side streets. The insider address to track down is Alla Ciurma, an ancient storeroom converted into a tiny bar resembling the inside of a boat, hence the name, The Crew. Working in a miniscule kitchen, owner Marco Paola makes creamy baccalà mantecato (creamy codfish mousse) tuna polpette, or “meatballs”, and courgette flowers stuffed with mozzarella and anchovies. Now he is experimenting by marinating raw fish in fruity olive oil and herbs – monkfish with olives and mint, seabream with basil and lemon, mackerel with laurel leaves and onion. The excellent house wine is 90 cents a glass, cicheti are €1-€1.50, with a sharing plate of cheeses and salami at €15.
• San Polo 406,+39 340 686 3561, osteriaciurma.it, closed Sunday
Pasticceria Bar Puppa
Down a narrow street towards Venice’s lagoon, Puppa’s resembles a 1960s Soho coffee bar, a longtime favourite pasticceria, thanks to Signor Puppa’s famous brioche and budino cakes. But Puppa retired after 50 years and behind the bar today is Bangladeshi Masud Rahman, who arrived in Venice 10 years ago and worked himself up from dishwasher to bar owner. Masud has been adopted by the locals and converted a loyal Venetian clientele to his own take on Bangla-Italian cuisine, serving samosas, spicy vegetarian bruschetta and exotic polpetta meatballs. He has also created the Puppa burger, with vertiginous levels of beef and wurstel, grilled aubergines, courgette, carrot, tomato and onion, topped off with a fried egg, all for €5. Main courses range from a spicy spaghetti alla busara with mussels and prawns to a vegetarian biryani, both at €12 including a glass of wine and coffee.
• Calle dello Spezier 4800, Cannaregio, +39 041 476 1454, on Facebook, open every day
The cafeteria at Palazzo Franchetti
Many of Venice’s museums have innovative cafes and restaurants – the Ca’Pesaro even has a terrace on the Grand Canal – but few visitors discover the popular self-service canteen inside the landmark Palazzo Franchetti, whose striking Venetian gothic pastel yellow facade sits next to Accademia bridge. Most of the year the Palazzo houses the Institute of Arts, Science and Letters, but is transformed during the biennale when it becomes a key exhibition venue. The caffeteria has huge glass windows overlooking a lush garden, the high ceiling hanging with flamboyant chandeliers. Each lunchtime a long buffet table is laid out with 20 different freshly-prepared dishes of pasta, rice salad, grilled aubergines and courgettes, rucola and radicchio, roast beef and chicken, maybe a traditional octopus and celery salad. For €15 you can eat all you want, and there is no problem going back for seconds.
• Campo San Stefano 2847, San Marco, +39 041 240 7711, palazzofranchetti.it, lunch only, closed Saturday and Sunday
La Bagatela
The corner of Cannaregio that runs along the quayside of the Misericordia and Ormesini canals has become Venice’s nightlife hub, teeming with partygoers from sunset onwards. But carry on past the Ghetto, across the bridge onto the Capuzzine Fondamenta, and the crowds melt away as you come to the quiet waterside terrace of La Bagatela. Stefano and Lele opened this neighbourhood bar nearly 25 years ago, long before the students and fashionistas arrived, and this is where the locals go. There is no full restaurant menu, but the kitchen serves till 1am. Lele, the chef, is known as the king of club sandwiches and you have to wait as he meticulously assembles them – but at €7 they are a meal in themselves. Order a lethal spritz al bitter (€2.50) to go with it while Ale, the rock’n’roll barman, plays the Doors through Led Zeppelin, Rory Gallagher and Van Morrison.
• Fondamenta delle Capuzzine 2925 , Cannaregio, +39 328 725 5782, on Facebook, open from 6pm, closed Monday and Tuesday
Osteria Ai Osti
In a quiet courtyard just off the bustling Strada Nove, the main drag between the train station and Rialto bridge, the Osti used to be an anonymous spit-and-sawdust bar until Diego Rasetti took over, renovated the kitchen and turned it back into a traditional bàcaro serving local specialities. The cramped dining room at the back is packed out each day, while a grizzled bunch of regulars crowd round the bar with a long glass counter filled with tempting cicheti. Come between 12pm-12.45pm and you can order the €12 menù operai, but even the à la carte prices are very reasonable: classic spaghetti al pomodoro is €6.50 and the house speciality, a mountain of fritto misto (deep-fried fish and seafood) costs €14.
• Corte dei Pali Testori 3489, Cannaregio, +39 041 520 7993, lunch only, closed Sunday
Ogio
Ogio opened in November 2014 and is still a bit of a secret, offering one of the best-quality deals in town for lunch. The bright modern dining room is on the ground floor of a fascinating building that was once the Convento dei Crociferi (the Crusaders’ Convent), next door to the monumental Gesuiti church with its Tintoretto and Titian paintings. The convent then became a military barracks before being closed and all but abandoned before it was renovated to its former splendour as a student hall of residence. For the lunch menu, chef Ermal prepares half a dozen different pasta dishes each morning, using fresh, local products: a big plate of spaghetti alla carbonara, tortelli stuffed with ricotta cheese or a white asparagus risotto are priced at €8, including bottled water and an espresso. Adjoining this funky canteen there is also a far more formal, chic restaurant, with a separate and much more expensive menu.
• Campo dei Gesuiti, Cannaregio, +39 3810 9326, open every day
Venice’s Grand Canal from the Academia bridge. Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian 