Venice
Alone

PRACTICAL SAMPLE

Eating Alone: The Practicalities

Where a restaurant has a bar counter, sit there when eating alone; you can watch the work and talk to the bartender.

When you book, ask for a table for one, or the bar if there is one. Venetian menus follow the seasons: artichokes and asparagus in spring, tomatoes and eggplant in summer, mushrooms and pumpkin in autumn, and root vegetables and preserved fish in winter.

Moleche, soft-shell crabs, appear for a few weeks in spring and autumn; order them when you see them. Cicchetti run a few euros a plate, so an evening between bacari costs about what a starter does elsewhere; the menù del giorno is the best value at lunch, and dinner at a serious restaurant is a different order of expense, which wine can double.

A free excerpt from Venice Alone.