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Eat Here: Ristorante Antico Martini

“This restaurant has been in continuous operation since 1720, which means that it is approaching its 300 year birthday! ”

One of the charms of Italy is its food. With one exception, I've always enjoyed every meal. Today's article is about one of our favorite Venetian restaurants -- Antico Martini.

Here is a photo of the restaurant late at night. The photo shows one of the four dining areas -- this one the Terrace -- and it was taken from the campo that Antico Martini shares with the La Fenice opera house.

[click an image for larger view]

Like most Venetian restaurants, Martini is open late for dinner, because that's when Italians tend to eat. This makes it an ideal place to eat after an opera, which we did after a fabulous performance of our favorite, La Boheme. 

Any idea who the first party to make an Antico Martini reservation via the internet might be? We have that distinction! Long before restaurants created their own systems or began to use those such as Open Table, we used just plain, old email. The owner at that time, the charming Emilio Baldi, had a table set with a nice bouquet of flowers and the prosecco was on the house to celebrate the occasion. 

Here is a photo of the main entrance to Antico Martini, on Calle Veste, just over a small bridge.

The location of Antico Martini is especially nice if one is going to the opera at La Fenice, which is right next door.

Like most all of the Venetian restaurants, seafood is the predominate fare. And the seafood is fresh and delicious. Local chefs visit the Rialto Market each morning to gather the makings for the day's meals. You can read more about The Rialto Market in one of my previous articles.

Here are a few photos of our times at Ristorante Antico Martini, starting with a couple of toasts to you and yours.

I've mentioned the seafood served in Venice before...and I will continue to do so. Here is an appetizer of very thinly sliced fish, caught just the previous evening. I'm not a sushi fan, but I had no trouble with this outstanding item. Notice how the candle light shows through my next bite!

One of our favorite things is having the fish presented, then de-boned, and then set before us. Here you see our server de-boning one of our dishes.

 

And here is our prize!

Antico Martini also has an excellent wine list. Here is a bottle of Valpolicella I enjoyed one evening. Note the 'legs' on this glass of red!

Here are a few photos of other dishes we've enjoyed at Antico Martini.

Always save room for dessert! 

How about a limoncello digestivi to end the meal?

And it seems that Craig’s Longhorns have won their football game today…another reason to celebrate!

 

We have eaten at Antico Martini seven times and for sure, the next time we go to Venice it we will make our eighth visit. 

Here is the web link to Ristorante Antico Martini.

And here are two very happy patrons of Ristorante Antico Martini.

The two of us!

And in-laws Leslie and Craig are so happy about Antico Martini that they are jumping for joy!!!

We are always happy to introduce friends to Antico Martini...so join us?!

Ciao for now,

Steve

Wild-Goose Chase

I'm not sure where the term 'wild-goose chase' originated, but it seems to be fairly descriptive of predicaments I've found myself in. And its not limited to chasing wild geese here in the U.S. either. My wife, Ellen, and I found ourself in an Italian version of a selvaggio inseguimento inutile.

“Traveling conversation: ‘What are you going to have, Sweetheart?’ ‘Ummm, I’m thinking about a ribeye. How about you?’ ‘I’m going with a sirloin, but if the ribeye looks good, I’ll get what you’re having.’ ‘Do they have baked potatoes in Italy?’ ‘No idea.’ ”

Some wild-goose chases are pretty innocuous, as you were just following your nose so to speak and weren't really going anywhere in particular anyway. But this one was important -- and this is what made it so frustrating. That's because we were on our way to a highly rated restaurant for dinner in the northern part of Tuscany. And it was to get a great steak! And we hadn't had much in the way of red meat for a couple of weeks -- that's the way it often is in Italy. 

I had checked on TripAdvisor for a nice place for dinner. Ristorante Becattini came highly rated for both its food and the view. Here is a photo captured from the TripAdvisor site that defines what we were looking forward to this fine evening.

Looks good, doesn't it?! i mean, we do love our Italian pasta, veal, etc., but after a couple of weeks of that, we were really looking forward to dinner at Becattini.

Ristorante Becattini is located high on a ridge in the small (very small) town of Poggio alla Croce. If it had been close to our beautiful Borgo San Felice (see previous article on this super nice hotel here), it wouldn't have been so bad. But it was an hour drive to get there...and that was using the A1 rather than the charming, winding Tuscan roads (Hey, we were hungry!). 

During the afternoon, I called ahead to make a reservation. It went something like this:

  • Guy on the Phone: 'Pronto' ['Yeh, what do you want?']

  • Me: 'Buona sera'. [Good afternoon]

  • Guy on the Phone: 'Buona sera'. [Good afternoon]

  • Me: 'Prenotazione per la cena, per favore' [Reservation for dinner, please]

  • Guy on the Phone: 'Si' [OK]

  • Me: 'Due persone per stasera alle venti'. [Two persons for tonight at 8:00]

  • Guy on the Phone: 'Si'. [OK]

  • Me: 'Mi chiamo Senore Burkett'. [My name is 'Burkett']

  • Guy on the Phone: 'Si'. [OK]

  • Me: 'Vicino alla finestra'. [We would like to sit by the window]

  • Guy on the Phone: 'Si'. [OK]

  • Me: 'Grazie' [Thank you]

  • Guy on the Phone: 'Prego' [Your welcome]

Hey, I think I did pretty good, right? We have a reservation for dinner at this fine restaurant tonight! 

After spending some time at the Castagnoli Winery, we plotted our fastest route to Poggio alla Croce using our trusty iPad. Traveling conversation: 'What are you going to have, Sweetheart?' 'Ummm, i'm thinking about a ribeye. How about you?' 'I'm going with a sirloin, but if the ribeye looks good, I'll get what you're having.' 'Do they have baked potatoes in Italy?' 'No idea.' 

Like I said, its a really, really small town. That's it right there in the photo. After negotiating the winding road and driving back-and-forth on the only street a couple of times with no luck finding Becattini, we asked the locals where where we would find the Ristorante Becattini.

  • Me: 'Scusi, do you know where we can find the restaurant Becattini?'

  • Nice Woman on the Street: 'I'm sorry sir, they closed in February'.

  • Me: 'What?'

  • Nice Woman on the Street: 'They closed in February'.

  • Me: 'Do you think they will be open tonight?'

  • Nice Woman on the Street: 'No, they are closed for good'.

  • Me: 'But we have a reservation!'

  • Nice Woman on the Street Who is Starting to Irritate Me Now: 'I don't see how that could be -- they've closed down'

  • Me: [sotto voce] 'You've got to be...'

  • Nice Woman on the Street Who's a Bit Defensive Now: 'Sorry, sir'.

  • Me: 'OK, thank you'

Arrrgh. An hour and no food to be found. But there was this little bar that we passed at the other end of town. We backtracked to Pizzeria Trattoria "Zia Emilia". After we parked and got out of the car, what a fine sight we had for a sunset! Maybe the trip was worthwhile after all.

And how charming was Zia Emilia? Super. This was Italian comfort-food heaven!

We had a simple appetizer of pear and honey with fried zucchini blossoms.

This appetizer is not to be confused with the one to the right that we had at Ristorante Poggio Rosso at our Borgo San Felice that I showed you a couple of weeks ago.  I just wanted to make that clear, OK?

 

My pizza was cooked in a wood-fired oven. 

Ellen had this wonderfully gooey pasta dish whilst I had my very tasty pizza.

All was accompanied by a small pitcher of house wine. 

Dessert? Well, if you look at the photo of Zia Emilia (above) again (go ahead, I'll wait), you will notice a small, colorful poster next to the entrance door...see it? That shows you the standard selection of popsicles, push-up pops, drumsticks and other frozen confections that are available. I think I had one of those red, white and green frozen 'bomb' thingies, and Ellen had an ice-cream sandwich. 

So we never caught the wild goose. That's OK, because what we found was a small-hill-town Italy, occupied with some very charming people who welcomed us with open arms.  Simple food. Tasty food. Yummy wine. Beautiful companion. Fun local fare. I'm glad it happened just the way it did!

Meet you there for dinner? 8 o'clock OK?

 

Ciao for now,

Steve

p.s. But hey, how about that reservation that i made? What was that about? Your guess is as good as mine!

p.p.s. I updated the TripAdvisor website so others won't make a 'reservation' at Becattini.

p.p.p.s. Go Broncos!

 

Staying in a Convent Retreat

The Grand Hotel Convento Amalfi -- Ahhhh.

I hope that you have a ‘place’ you can go when you are feeling a bit out of sorts. A place of escape from sometime and somewhere that has comforting memories for you.

“The convent from which this hotel sprang was originally an abbey of Cistercian monks beginning in 1223”

I do, and I want to share it with you in hopes that you might think to dwell on such a place from your own life. And if you don’t have such a place, staying at this fabulous hotel will give you a place where your mind can go to settle for years to come.

In September, you saw the article titled ‘One Fine Day’. That article was about a fabulous day on the Amalfi Coast of Italy. Today’s article is about our base of operations while we were in Amalfi.

History of the Convent/Hotel

That's the Grand Hotel Convento at the top left

First, you need to understand that in modern English usage since the 18th century, a convent refers to a community of women. However, in much earlier times, it referred to a community of either brothers or sisters. The convent from which this hotel sprang was originally an abbey of Cistercian monks beginning in 1223. In 1583, it passed to Capuchin Friars who were there for two centuries until they were expelled in 1813 (I’m sure there’s a great story in there somewhere). It wasn’t until 1885 that it began to be used as a hotel, and it experienced a series transformations to keep up with an increasing tourism demand.

Here are a couple of photos of what remains of portions of the old convent. White plastered walls with intricate stonework make for a contemplative scene.

Getting There

The Grand Hotel Convento di Amalfi, sits at the end of, and high above, Amalfi Town. You can see the hotel in this old photograph that seems to pre-date elevators and today's roadway, which you can see in the next photo.

To get to the hotel, one parks their car in the right lane of a two lane road just as that road enters a tunnel (and the Italian drivers give your parking in the roadway not a second thought -- its just the way its done along the Amalfi Coast), as that’s where the hotel entrance is located. You can see the tunnel entrance along the main highway in this photo, taken from the hotel pool.

A bellman comes out to greet you and unload your bags. They then maneuver your car into that small lot you see in the photo -- if there is a space, that is. If there are no spaces, who knows where your vehicle winds up? 

The hotel entrance is a cave-like opening in the cliff through which you walk to an elevator. That elevator takes you up a couple of hundred feet where you disembark (the glass elevator structure can be seen in the photo) to another elevator within the hotel proper where you then go to the lobby on the fifth floor.

A prosecco awaited our arrival...and you can tell we needed it!

Now, if you had been smart, you might have arrived in Amalfi by boat. Or maybe you arrived by car driven by a professional. And then there’s a bus. But we drove ourselves from Salerno along the most terrifying road on which we have ever been. When we arrived, we were given a complementary prosecco as seen above, complete with goose berry, to calm our nerves. See that guy in the background? He’s an Australian who said after learning that we had driven ourselves along the coastal road, “I admire you!”

The Hotel

Our room, with balcony and lovely whitewashed walls and ceiling, looked out over the blue Mediterranean.

An evening view of the Mediterranean from our balcony

The grounds were dreamy. Bougainvillea arbors covered the dining patio, where we had both breakfast, lunch and dinner whilst eating at the hotel. And the weather was superb!

The Amalfi Coast is noted for its lemons and its limoncello. Almost everywhere you look along the coast, you will see arbors of lemon trees, like these in the hanging gardens of the hotel.

 

The reach the pool, you walk along this loggia for a bit.

This loggia leads from the dining veranda to the pool

And then you come to the most dramatic pool setting that we’ve ever seen.

A dramatic cliff-side pool location

The infinity pool, with an infinite view of the Med

The view from the hotel’s terrace is spectacular, whether it be sunrise, midday, sunset or evening. The town of Amalfi sits just below. In this photo, you see the sunrise we experienced from the roof of the hotel.

Sunrise comes to the Amalfi Coast

Here is a view during the day of Amalfi and its harbor. The pool cabana can be seen in the middle-left of the photo. And the ever-present lemons can be seen along the lower edge.

Lush vegetation and Amalfi Town

The view towards Sicily 

I’m not sure if ‘what goes down, must go up’ is part of Newtonian physics, but if you’re staying at the hotel and want to go into town, that’s the reality of the situation. The good part is you don’t have to walk all the way up – just to the roadway where you can go to the hotel entrance and then up the rest of the way to the hotel by elevator. But still, there are plenty of steps to negotiate for you to get your exercise. 

It's a long way up to the GHCA

Want to go to the beach? Here is what you find just below the hotel…with crystal clear waters.

The beach below the hotel...a nice place to relax and get wet

And this shot from the hotel shows the ‘beach’ of the hotel just past the exit of the tunnel mentioned earlier. The Italians make creative use of their resources, don’t they?!

An architects dream...a stone workers nightmare

The Food

Now, if you’re like me, and I certainly know that I am, you are probably wondering about the food at the hotel. Rather than me telling you how scrumptiously delicious it is, just take a look.

The breakfast buffet – scrumptious.

Poolside lunch – scrumptiouser

Dinner – the scruptiousest.

And of course, at each meal we had either our favorite ‘Coca Cola Lite’ or wine – or sometimes, both.

A nice bottle of Amarone, all the way down from the Veneto

And how did the food get to our table? Well, it was usually Alfonso who took care of us, and he did a marvelous job!

Our outstanding waiter, Alfonso

After our evening meal, with this being Amalfi and all – home to the world’s best limoncello -- Alfonso brings us a bit of the yellow liquid to finish off a perfect evening.

The end to a perfect evening

 

I hope that you have your own special place where you can go to dwell on happy times whenever you need such a diversion. If you don’t, feel free to borrow ours!

Here is a link to the website for the Grand Hotel Convento di Amalfi:

http://www.ghconventodiamalfi.com/en/

 

Ciao for now,

Steve

 

 

 

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The Rialto Market of Venice

One of the pleasures of Venice is the Rialto Market. Located near a ninety-degree bend of the Grand Canal, and just a bit northwest of the Rialto Bridge, the market offers both fresh produce in the erberia (vegetable market) and caught-the-night-before seafood in the pescheria (fish market).

All of these photos were taken at the Rialto Market.

[click on an image for a larger view]

One should plan to go around sunrise if you want to see the stevedores unload crates from barges which traveled up the Grand Canal in the early-morning hours. Or, if you want to sleep just a bit longer, plan to arrive around 8:00am to see the market in full swing. But, don’t bother to go in the afternoon or on Sundays or Mondays, as the market is closed.

Is this a working market? With over 100,000 visitors and locals in Venice on any particular day, this is the main source of food for the islands which make up Venice. If you show up early, you will see chefs from virtually all of the Venetian restaurants gathering items that you will find on their menus later in the day.

So, how is the Rialto Market different from the typical farmer's market in the U.S.? There are three main differences. For one thing, there is an abundance of seafood -- like fish, octopus, squid, crab, scallops and several mollusk types.

Second, the produce that is brought to your farmer's market most likely did not arrive by boat -- virtually everything arriving in Venice comes by boat.

The last difference is that your local farmer's market did not exist until the Rialto Market was about 800 years old. The Rialto Market has been serving Venice's food needs since 1097!

Produce of the Erberia

Talk about fresh produce! Just like our farmer’s markets, fruits and vegetables arrive daily fresh from the farms of Italy and surrounding countries. The photos you've been looking at are examples of this veritable cornucopia.

Seafood of the Pescheria

Though I really like the produce that’s in abundance at the market, the seafood is what I find the most interesting, as we just don't have access to such a fine market as the Rialto where I live. There are ‘creatures’ in this market that I’ve never seen in the U.S. seafood markets. Here are just some of the tasty denizens of the sea that you will find at the Rialto Market.

So that's the Rialto Market in Venice, Italy. If you have a chance to visit, I'm sure you will be as wowed with the seafood and produce as I have been. And by the way, all of the photos above can be found in the Food+Wine section of my website...just click on 'Print Store' below for easy access.

I'll close with a photo that was published in Black & White Magazine as part of a four-page spread on Venice a couple of years ago. This photo was taken during the daily cleaning-up-the-seafood-market event each afternoon. And yes, they still use stick brooms in Venice. The photo at right shows that sticks have been delivered, ready to be attached to broom handles. Amazing, isn't it?! 

Thanks for visiting. Feel free to leave comments, below.

Ciao for now,

Steve

 

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