Francesco La Porta has lived in Paris for many years, but is originally from Venice. At the beginning of the year, he opened a restaurant in the French capital that brings a piece of his hometown to the city.
Osteria Goto recreates the concept of a traditional Venetian bar – known as a bacaro – with typical food and drinks. Even the name is reminiscent of the canal city – “goto” is the word for glass in the Venetian dialect.
Bacari are popular, quirky spots in Venice where you’re guaranteed to find a version of the city that hasn’t yet been tainted by overtourism and overcommercialization. Here’s how to spot a bacaro and what to order when you’re there.
What is a Venetian Bacaro?
Aesthetically, bacari have a few things in common. They are small, cozy bars. Inside there is a long counter where bartenders serve drinks and snacks are displayed in a glass display case.
The decor is rather rustic and cluttered, with shelves full of dusty bottles, handwritten signs, photos of famous guests or antique objects. There are often dark wooden beams on the ceiling.
Inside, there are a few small wooden tables and chairs to sit at, or long wooden shelves and high stools along the walls. But guests also like to gather outside, balancing drinks and plates of food on window sills or walls along the canal bank.
In a bacaro you may find signs in the Venetian dialect and there is a good chance that you will hear some guests speaking it too.
What should you order in a Venetian bacaro?
Bacari are places where people usually go for an aperitif before lunch or dinner. Due to the cheap prices of food and drinks, they have recently become a recommendation in travel guides for cheap meals.
While some bacari serve food on plates where you sit down, these are more likely to be places where you stand around the counter or outside and eat snacks that you eat with your fingers or skewer on a toothpick.
They are used by Venetians as a meeting place for socializing and networking, perhaps after work or on Sunday mornings before heading out for a big lunch.
Aperol Spritz – a mixture of bitter Aperol, Prosecco and a dash of soda water – has become one of the most popular drinks.
But you can also drink a spritz with Select, a herb-flavored bitter from the city, Campari or Cynar, which is made from artichokes. A spritz is usually garnished with a slice of orange or lemon and often an olive.
Don’t be surprised if your spritz is served in a mug rather than an Instagram-worthy goblet – this might even be considered the more “authentic” way of serving.
However, some bacari may not serve a spritz, as the “original” drink was a small glass of local wine called “ombra”, which cost around €1-1.50.
Ombra means shadow and some say the name comes from the wine sellers in St. Mark’s Square who parked their carts in the shadow of the Campanile.
The bars also have a good selection of other wines by the glass.
What can you eat in a Venetian bacaro?
To accompany your drink, you can choose from a selection of bar snacks that cost between 1 and 5 euros. There are no set rules about what can be served; it depends on the creativity of the bar owner. But there are some classics.
Typically you’ll find tramezzini, triangular sandwiches made of crustless white bread, generously filled with combinations like tuna and pickled onions, ham and mushroom mayonnaise, or mozzarella and tomato slices.
Tramezzini are said to have been invented in the northeastern city of Turin and to have given their name to the poet Gabriele d’Annunzio, who described them as a “tramezzo” (break) between lunch and dinner.
However, some claim that Venice was the inventor, saying that the humid air gives the tramezzino the characteristic slight muddyness that all good varieties have.
Bacari also serves a selection of cicheti (in the Venetian dialect and Italianized to cicchetti), a word said to come from the Latin “ciccus,” meaning “small amount.”
This refers to any small snack. One of the most typical is a round slice of crispy bread or polenta topped with Gorgonzola and walnuts, cream cheese and anchovies.
They can also be topped with baccalà, a Venetian cod mousse, or sarde in saor – sardines in a sweet and sour onion sauce.
More substantial are polpette – “meatballs” made from minced meat, fish or vegetables – and mozzarella in carrozza, where the cheese is fried in a crispy breadcrumb crust.
You’ll also find plenty of seafood like grilled shrimp, baby squid in a spicy tomato sauce, and mini octopuses drizzled with oil and lemon juice.
The term “bacaro” may come from the historical Venetian saying “far bàcara,” or “to celebrate,” a phrase that may have been inspired by Bacchus, the Roman god of wine and pleasure.
Whatever their origin, bacari are places to sit back, chat and work up an appetite for dinner – aperitivo is said to derive from the verb aprire, meaning “to open” and refers to preparing the stomach before a meal.
