If you know Venetian bacari, you don't need an explanation but a suggestion: don't miss Adriatico Mar, a tiny, great little place tucked away on Calle Crosera Dorsoduro.
Venice is a regular destination of ours: every year we go there to spend a few days. We always prefer to go there in winter because it is less crowded and has that dark, damp and cold charm That we like so much. Getting lost in its calli, using the vaporetto as little as possible, all bundled up, almost in the dark, has a charm all its own. Therefore, last time, at the suggestion of a friend with whom we share a love for this city, we went to eat at Adriatico Mar, tiny Venetian Bacaro. It takes a truffle dog to find it, and after an interminable zig zag between calli and romantic little bridges, down there at the end you catch a glimpse of a little light. Could that be the place? No sign, no indication, Only the call of that little light lost in the night. That was it: small wooden door, a small window from which one glimpses a tiny, spartan room with a few small tables, a couple of stools, a small confusing counter and many open bottles, ready for pouring.
When you walk in you immediately feel like you’ve come home, yes it’s just the kind of place we were looking for. We take a seat at the two stools near the small window and Chatting with the owner, we decide to taste a little of everything there. The food and wine offerings are good and have the Adriatic Sea as a strict thread, so only products from the shores of the sea: cured meats, cheeses, and fish, offered in “cicchetti” or in delicious mini stuffed sandwiches. To drink, unfortunately, only natural wines, but really, virtually all of them can be drunk by the glass and still we didn’t drink anything gustatively extreme.
In short, in the end, chatting with each other, discussing wine amicably with our host, eating well and being properly pampered, we left after a couple of hours, already regretting that we would have to wait a year to return.
For once I will end this review with a thematic literary recommendation. About thirty years ago I read a beautiful book of short stories: “Stories of Adriatic” by Sergio Anselmi (ed. Il Mulino 1996). Thirteen humble true stories from the 1300s to the 1900s, which have the Adriatic Sea as their backdrop. The next time you go to Venice and decide to go to this venue, if you have read this book, you will understand that History is like a fabric that is knotted and unraveled continuously, over the centuries. And perhaps you will better enjoy this tiny, great little place.
ADRIATIC MAR PHOTO GALLERY
