Paris: finally a couple of restaurants worth noting

I love Paris, but until recently I haven’t loved Paris restaurants.   Beyond the trifecta of delicious bread, cheese, and wine, most of my Paris food experiences have been rather ho hum.  It’s not been for lack of effort either.  Paris beckons with their lovely outdoor cafes, but the kitchen gives the impression that they are sighing at the thought of having to cook for anyone.  In cities like London and Barcelona on the other hand, restaurants murmur “come hither” from both the curbside and the kitchen.  In these cities there are more choices than time.

I kept thinking I was missing something or that I was deeply influenced by my friend Alice who told me a couple of years ago how disappointed she was with the food on her trip to Paris.  Finally validation came in the form of a NY Times article last week.  In the article “Can Anyone Save French Food” Michael Steinberger explains how and why Paris started serving ordinary, predictable food in the late 90s but how Paris is showing new signs of life with a crop of expat chefs serving up French food with a lighter and seasonal focus. 

The article also helped explain why no one answered my phone call to Abri, a French Japanese restaurant that I’d been reading about and trying to make a lunch reservation at for my March trip to Paris.  Apparently it’s the hardest reservation to get in town.  Spring, another restaurant mentioned in the article, has also been on my list but I landed a reservation at Le 6 Paul Bert before I made it that far.  Also on my restaurant roll is Le Garde Robe, a wine bar serving light snacks that is just around the corner from Spring – both of which are conveniently near the Louvre.  I did a drive/walk by both Spring and Le Garde Robe on my March trip and the curb appeal was most definitely there, especially at Spring where you could see the chefs prepping for dinner in the window.

I had read about Le 6 Paul Bert on David Lebowitz’s blog and also on the Paris Kitchen blog.  They have a terrific lunch “formula” that involves three courses (an appetizer, main, and dessert) for the bargain price of 19 euros.   It’s a tiny, inviting place with what looks like one long dining room table where they pack in pairs of diners (so best suited for parties of 2) with an open kitchen.  Reservations are a must, but I was able to get one the day before.  Lunch time in Paris is 12-2pm and so there is generally only one seating for lunchtime.  Unlike most French food where things are sauced together or decorum takes precedence over flavor, the dishes at Le 6 Paul Bert were fresh, light and nuanced.  For each course, there are only two options which change daily so it’s only a place to go if you are the type of person who welcomes a food adventure.   I had lunch there with my friend Angela, the same friend who sent me the Michael Steinberger article two days after our bistro bonanza.  Angela has sampled a lot more food in Paris than I have, and she would concur that Le 6 Paul Bert was a home run.  Finally.  It was so good that we were the first to arrive and last to leave and we even felt comfortable enough to send our glass of wine back because it tasted funny.  (The replacement glass of wine did not.)  Le 6 Paul Bert is located in the 11th arrondissement which is out of the main touristed areas but is easily accessed by metro.  Food porn + happy Angela post lunch below.

My friend Jannine scouted out the restaurant Pirouette for lunch when we went together in January.  We however were having so much fun on our Paris by Mouth food tour that we missed our lunch reservation.  I passed on the tip to my inlaws when they were visiting in March and they beat all of us to this little gem that opened last year in the 1rst arrondissement near Les Halles.  It’s been written up on all the Paris food blogs and my father-in-law was able to make dinner reservations for a Saturday night on Thursday evening.  (Granted this was March not busy summer time.) 

Here is his review of Piroutte: “Just terrific. You must go. A foody restaurant but not arrogant or overbearing at all. Good English and very friendly. We talked to owner a bit. Lots of great menu choices from a blackboard the waiter goes through very patiently. ( aside – we ate at 7 most nights and I am a fan of that hour, not because we go to bed early. The restaurant may be almost empty but the wait staff has time to be patient with English speakers and the ambiance of other diners picks up a 7:30). We had the 3 course 40 euros choice and it was not too much to eat. We did ask for lighter choices. I had trout appetizer and fish. Annelle had a gnocchi and whole morel mushroom dish in puree spinach sauce. Her main was very good but we have forgotten. Memorable but not memorable. Her dessert was crème brulee and mine was a fancy mix of tasty morsels (best I can do).” 

So there you have it … a couple of restaurants in Paris I (and my father-in-law Dan) can recommend with enthusiasm. 

London's East End Food Tour

Bacon Sandwich at St. John Bread & Wine

Having done a food tour recently in Paris, I’ve realized that a guided walking food tour is one of the best ways to experience a new city.  You’ll never be able to eat through all the places you want to try when visiting a new city, but a food tour can “microwave” some of the best food a city has to offer in less than four hours.  With my second food tour – this time in London -- now under my belt (literally), I’m officially a food tour fan.

In addition to getting small bites of lots of different foods, you don't have to commit to something like a full order of mushy peas if that's not your thing or since you're likely to only want to have English pudding once -- you want that one time to be worth it.  You also don't have to worry about making multiple reservations, paying at the end of the meal -- all things which slow you down when you are trying to see a lot in a new city.  Also if you consider the price of the food tour to be a full lunch + a guided tour, it's really not that expensive.

The food scene in London is off the hook and so there are a number of food tours to choose from.  I decided on the Eating London food tour in the East End as it was a neighborhood I was interested in getting to know better.  Home to Brick Lane and its more than 50 curry shops, previously the Jewish community and now the hipsters and artists, it’s a neighborhood in transition and one that reminded me a lot of Capitol Hill in Seattle.  Different than the Paris by Mouth food tour where we hunted and gathered food (bread, cheese, chocolate, macaroons) and then stopped once in a wine shop to have all our goodies paired with wines, this tour involved eight separate eating stops.  (Both approaches are fun, just different.)  The diversity of the stops illustrates the excitement that’s happening in food in London. 

• St. John Bread & Wine – bacon sandwich (award winning restaurant)
• The English restaurant – bread and butter pudding (historic restaurant)
• Androuet – three English cheeses (run by some French expats)
• Poppies – fish, chips, and mushy peas (Poppy recently won best fish& chips in London)
• Pride of Spitalfields – ale and cider (an old school pub home to the famous cat Lenny)
• Brick Lane’s Aladin – three curries (vegetable, chicken, and lamb curry in increasing degrees of heat)
• Beigel Bake – salted beef bagel (most famous bagel shop this side of Atlantic opened 24/7)
• Pizza East – salted caramel tart and English tea (a hipster hangout where you can’t take photos of the decor)

Upsides:  the food (all of it is good), the quantity of the food (you won’t be hungry for a big dinner), the organization (the company started food tours in Rome, added London’s East End seven months ago, and is soon adding tours in Prague and Amsterdam), the logistics (the restaurants were ready for us at every stop), and exuberance of the guides (there are only two of them doing the East End Food Tour every day but Sunday and they are knowledgeable about the area and food scene), the East End street art (which we got a good tour of as well.)

Downside:  with tour groups of up to 12 people, you will not “blend in” with the hipsters. Doing it solo (my tour was four couples, me and the guide. Bring a friend.)  The exuberance of the guides (occasionally an unnecessary, goofy scripted joke sneaks in.)  You’ll be craving a bacon sandwich the next morning.

Actually I did eat dinner that night… because it’s London and you can’t pass up a dinner.   Brett was working long days the four days I was there, but we were able to meet up for late dinners.  Recommending a restaurant in London is like being asked to pick your top three U2 songs.   There are too many good ones to choose from, but here are three that we really liked for the food and the experience:

1.  NOPI (Soho).  NOPI is Yotam Ottolenghi’s, the author of Jerusalem and Plenty cookbooks, restaurant in Soho.  If you know those cookbooks, you know how unique Ottolenghi’s Middle eastern/Asian cooking is and how beautifully he puts vegetables on center stage.  The food was outstanding; though service was a bit slow.  Pick a day when you have time to linger or aren’t trying to make it to the theater.

 2.  Chor Bizarre (Mayfair). Our favorite Indian in Mayfair.  Come hungry and get the Thali (the sampling of 6 different dishes along with cucumber riata and naan.)  There is a meat and vegetarian Thali.

3.  The Modern Pantry (Clerkenwell).  This modern European restaurant was right across the street from our hotel, but it’s also a destination restaurant.   Seasonal food done really well.

Artists and kettles

Henri Cartier-Bresson, The Pompidou Center PARIS

Often going to a museum is akin to eating my lima beans.  Some people visit museums because they are riveted by art or they experience the world through the lens of history.  I mostly go because I should.  There is of course value in this exposure, but I admit to having to work at it.  I’m the visitor who always opts for the audio guide and rarely knows in advance the famous work I will be seeing. 

More recently however, I’ve chucked the guidebooks and allowed my interests – photography and art from the last 100 years since the First World War - to direct my museum outings.   This is where I stand a better chance of appreciating the creativity of the artist and understanding their cultural context. 

David Bailey, National Portrait Gallery LONDON

This reset has led me to three outstanding exhibits in the past month, two in London and one in Paris.   All three exhibits – pop artist Richard Hamilton, photographer David Bailey, and photojournalist Henri Cartier-Bresson - encompassed an exceptional range of contemporary subjects over a period of many decades.  (All three exhibits run through June 2014.)   I’m not knowledgeable enough to write a proper review of any of them, but thankfully there are people that can and have already done that.  I can tell you however that each one of these left me inspired.   It was like walking through someone’s beautifully illustrated storybook of the modern age.

Richard Hamilton, Tate Modern LONDON

I think of creatives like kettles filled to the brim with water, where the temperature of life causes steam to need to be released.   When that boiling water is then poured out over ground up bits of life, something new blooms.  The finer the grind and the slower the pour, the richer the output.   The creative must filter – leaving words and frames on the cutting room floor – so only the best stuff remains. 

I for one am glad that these three men did not leave their kettle on the burner.  Un-poured-out kettles risk reaching a boiling point where vibrations become louder and eventually sound a whistle.   No one likes the piercing sound of a whistle.  But neither do we all want a sanitized world filled with only automated coffee machines.  We need to record facts, but we also need people who are painstakingly filtering those facts to highlight the unique character of the world we live in.

Henri Cartier-Bresson’s work brilliantly captures this idea of a “decisive moment.”   He once said:  “Composition relies on chance.  I never make calculations.  I perceive a structure and wait for something to happen.  There are no rules.  One should not try too hard to explain the mystery.  It is better just to be receptive, a Leica within each reach.”

If you find yourself in London or Paris before June, you may want to make this one of your decisive stops and be inspired.

The 10 Best Budapest Surprises

We did the requisite sightseeing of Budapest’s main attractions and came away with a few surprises.

1.  A city still trending.  Walking around Budapest which was recently named “Most Welcoming European City”, it is hard to believe that it was occupied by Soviets when Brett and I were in college.  With the Danube River at the heart of this sprawling yet walkable city, though it has been modernized since destruction in the two world wars and Soviet occupation it is still a city very much in transition. It only takes seeing your first retro60s bus or tram to realize the renewal is not yet done.  (Given the central location of where we stayed, we were able to do everything on foot.)  Against the backdrop of some beautiful architecture and a vibrant music and nightlife scene, trendy shops and organic cafes are popping up next to abandoned buildings on streets like Király Street, also known as Budapest's Design Street.  (One section of Kiraly Street might also be known as the Sex Street and home to the unfortunate Starbucks/KFC combo franchise … so be warned that it’s a mixed use street.)  There is also massive construction going on to pedestrianize the area around the historic Parliament building, all signals that Budapest is rallying to keep their moniker of “Most Welcoming European City.” 

2.  English, ok.   Unlike other large European cities we’ve visited, only 4% of the population in Budapest is foreigners.  With that, we had heard that there wasn’t a lot of English but we found there was actually plenty to get by.  Most of the places we visited and restaurants we ate in were more than ready to cater, and generally quite friendly, to English speakers.   This was a plus since our Hungarian was not good, and the boys French not at all useful.  Brett never even needed to work in his German.

3.  Seriously, it really is cheap!  We expected that Budapest would be cheaper than other places we’ve visited in Europe, but it was even more of a bargain than we expected.  We noticed the rock-bottom prices most with food.  As a data point, a full breakfast for the five of us with freshly squeezed juices and cappuccinos was 35 euros.   Getting there was also ridiculously cheap. Flying Ryan Air, we got round trip airfare for 20 euros (or US$28!) per person.   To compare, that is 20 bucks less than the average price you’d pay for a single game NBA ticket.  (Always adding a basketball reference where I can to win some street cred in dah house.)   There are apparently some very nice hotels in Budapest, but if you are considering the apartment route we found an EXCELLENT modern, super affordable apartment with all the creature comforts you need right in the center of town in between Parliament and the Danube River.  The owner is a young, friendly Hungarian woman who used to work in a 5 star hotel in the US, so she knows service (ie she arranged our transport to and from the airport, had breakfast fixings in the frig for us, etc.)  Her reviews on Airbnb are perfect and for good reason.  Check it out.  

4.  Budaspaaaahhhhh.  This is how little I knew about Budapest before going:  I did not know about their thermal spas.  You should know about them.  Once you do, you’ll be booking a flight.  Geologically perched on some thermal springs, Budapest has over 30 spa-water pools and thermal baths.   We choose to go to Szechenyi Baths, which is the most impressive of the bunch given that it’s both the largest bathing complex in Europe and the one with the deepest and hottest baths.  With three outdoor and fifteen indoor pools all at varying temperatures plus more steam rooms and saunas than you can count, it takes a good couple of hours just to bath hop.  You can see the Turkish influence in the old world architecture which has been safeguarded against commercialism.  With a robust over 60 crowd, some of whom play chess in the corners of one of the outdoor pools, these baths are more about relaxation than water frolicking.  One of the outdoor pools was dubbed the “adventure pool” because it had a whirlpool and several jets.  Naturally, this is where our romping boys spent the majority of their time.

5.  Deep-roasted coffee culture.  Coffee was introduced by the Turks in the 16th century, cultivated during the Habsburg era and evangelized during the 1960s as many cafes converted into eszpresszo bars catering to Western-leaning teens.  At its high point, there were more than 600 cafes.   You’d think with those numbers our odds of finding them would be easy.  We did not.  That’s because rather than walking into one of the many we saw, Brett worked hard combing through local blogs to find the *perfect* coffee spots.  We hiked to several of these spots eagerly only to be disappointed.   By the third letdown, our oldest made this astute observation:  “Dad, there’s a difference between good coffee shops and interesting coffee shops.”  By the last day, we hit on two good ones (found through research of course) worth nothing.  

• Ecocafe (on Andrassy near the Museum of Terror) serves quality 100% bio/organic coffee and pastries.  With a dozen or so tables, it’s not only good coffee but also a comfortable spot to hang out. 
• Ozsem (right near our apartment) is an excellent pastry/coffee shop with more than twenty different homemade sweet and savory pastries in various caloric sizes.  More grab & go than sit & linger, but definitely worth a stop if you are near St. Stephen’s Basilica.

6.  Goulash is only the beginning.  Hungarian food is good!  Unlike German food which can be heavy and narrow, Hungarian food is lighter and has a wider range of options (meat, veal, pork, chicken, duck, trout, pike) and flavor profiles (some French and Turkish influences.)   We never had a bad meal, but the following three restaurants are worth going out of your way for.  The first was our favorite and one that Brett found through a food blog.   The second two were recommendations from people who had lived in Budapest. 

• Café Bouchon – off Andrassy, near Octagon in the 6th (1066 Bp. Zichy Jenő u. 33.)  Café Bouchon is a small neighborhood restaurant with exceptional food and excellent service.  Every dish was carefully explained, they were flexible on portion sizes and they seemed genuinely unfazed by a shrieking baby at the next table.  We ordered roasted pork tenderloin stuffed with green spices, grilled pike perch fillet, veal cutlet, roasted salmon, and grilled beef tenderloin goulash with four different kinds of potation preparations.  All of us ordered full size plates for which we were glad as we all ended our meals in the “clean plate club.”  Make reservations.
• Ket Szerecsen – also off Andrassy in the 6th (Nagymezo u. 14).   This restaurant has an old world feel with a modern take on food.  Serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner, we had one dinner there and decided to come back for a breakfast.  A sit down eggs-wht-options breakfast is hard to find in Europe, and this one delivered.; The Hungarian Omelet was particularly outstanding.  Note:  They stop serving breakfast at 11am on weekdays and 11:30 on weekends.
• Menza – also off Andrassy in the 6th (2 Liszt Ferenc ter).  A popular, large very busy restaurants that has a late 80s/early 90s feel with “happening” atmosphere.  Good food and portions sizes though service was a bit slow.  The energetic atmosphere and good value however make up for slower service.

It’s generally recommended to eat on the Pest side rather than the Buda side as there are fewer and more expensive restaurants on the Buda side (Castle District.)  Our most expensive meal was a lunch at the above average Var: a Speiz in the Castle District, and we also heard good things about 21. 

7.  Hungary has hamburgers.  I don’t know if it’s a carryover from the first McDonalds behind the Iron Curtain being in Budapest, but Budapest has hamburgers!  Hamburgers, more than brats, were available on most dinner menus we saw.  They are even served with a delectable brioche bun.  Coming from the US, they won’t necessarily impress or disappoint, but coming from Luxembourg – it’s a hamburger that doesn’t taste weird!  We especially enjoyed a burger spot in the Gozsdu courtyard off Kiraly uta (a covered passageway hotspot) that’s called Spiler. Though Hungary is not known for their craft beers, Spiler also has a decent selection of bottled beers.  (Burger Confession: we went twice.) 

8.  Hipster Hungarians.  Because we were traveling with our kids, we didn’t get the chance to check out the Ruin Pubs that put Budapest on the map as a party city several years ago.  These late hour pubs are typically in the basements of ruined buildings where they serve drinks and snacks and play live music.  You can spot them all over town. Next time.  In terms of shopping, you’ll be happy to know that shopping isn’t limited to Hungarian peasant blouses. Note:  the guidebooks and everyone will tell you that Vaci Utca is the big pedestrian shopping street, but only go if you enjoy vultures trying to lure you into their overpriced restaurants or if you need something at Foot Locker.   Andrassy Utca, their “Champs Elysses”, is however worth a stroll especially at night when the embassies are lit up and Heroes Square is in the distance. Though we just skimmed the hem of shopping in Budapest, a couple of places we read about turned out to be fun stops.

• Tisza Cipo – Karoly Korut 1.  Unisex leather sports shoes made and only available in Hungary.  Really interesting, iconic looking shoes that have a passionate following.  Unfortunately they didn’t make shoe sizes big enough for Brett (size 13) and Quinn (size 14).     
• Printa Budapest - Rumbach Sebestyén u. 10. A graphic design concept gallery that is described liked this: “The gallery is dedicated to presenting contemporary serigraphs, drawings, graphics and urban art from upcoming Hungarian and international artists.”  We bought a couple of really cool posters there.
• Orange Optika – Kiraly Utca 38.  Glasses shop that makes glass frames from vinyl records.  Apparently Elton John ordered some.  They also have a Seattle connection that I wasn't totally able to figure out.  They graciously let the little boys have fun trying on frames for 40 minutes (I know because our teenager was outside clocking us).  Wanting to find something unique from Hungary to bring back, I opted for a vinyl record pair of sunglasses.

9.  Decent red wine.  The French and Italian get all the attention for their red wines, but Hungary makes a number of red wines.  We especially liked some of the dry Pinots as a nice change of pace to the full-bodied stuff we’ve been drinking from our Italy adventures.

10.  House of Terror.  One of the most highly recommended museum stops we got was to visit the Terror Museum – a tribute to WWII/Soviet Occupation.  Given the subject matter and a seven year old with a particularly sensitive soul, Lawton and I hung out at a coffee shop (the nearly Ecocafe mentioned above) while Brett took the older boys.  They all said it was incredibly powerful and moving, and a must do for anyone coming to Budapest.  Next time…

The grown up version of a kid in a candy store window

…is pretty much any window in Paris.

(Photo cred: Jannine Suplee)

My January day trip to Paris was with four dear friends all from Seattle and living in Luxembourg as expat wives: Holly C, Holly Z, Shannon and Jannine.  On the recommendation of some well seasoned travelers, we did a walking food tour of Taste of Saint-Germain with Paris by Mouth.  They have a number of different neighborhood food tours as well as ones focused on wine. The Taste of Saint-Germain tour completely exceeded all our expectations, which is noteworthy since all of us have been living abroad and devouring European food for six months or more.  Here was my online review:

We had a fantastic food tour of Saint Germain with Sara. It is not a "factory type" tour at all. No one is carrying a sign for you to follow. It's small, intimate and personalized to the tastes of the 7-8 people in the tour. Not only do you get to taste wonderful food and a lot of it (we ended up skipping our lunch reservation), but you get to hear wonderful stories about each stop. Sara is clearly a friend of all the shop owners we visited. The first part of the tour is hunting and gathering and the second part is sitting and savoring, and you'll be learning things all along the way. This was my seventh day trip to Paris, and one of the most fun experiences I've had yet. Great for people new and old to Paris. Yes you've come to Paris for the Louvre, but you've also come for the food -- so why not let someone take you round to discover some the best bread, pastries, cheese, wine and chocolate the city has to offer.

I HIGHLY recommend this tour to anyone coming for a trip to Paris.  It’s totally worth the 95 euros per person in terms of the experience, amount of food and back stories behind the success of many of Paris's finest pastry chefs, bakers, and cheese mongers.  The larger-than-life butcher we met in the Marché Couvert is Ina Garten's (the Barefoot Contessa) butcher and apparently Brad Pitt was just in visiting him the week prior.  It's the only covered market I've been in that doesn't smell like fish or aged cheese.  It smells like heaven.  Make sure to book well in advance, particularly in the summer, as tour groups are small and as their reputation is growing.   I’ve also since used the Paris by Mouth website as a resource for restaurant recommendations in Paris.  Their website is still a bit clunky, but content is good.  The wine tour they offer and which I’ve heard most praised is: Beyond Bordeaux: A Tour of Unconventional Wines & Wine Bars.   

Places visited during our Taste of Saint-Germain food tour, in case you want to venture out on your own:

• Poilâne bakery at 8 rue du Cherche Midi, 75006
• Marché Couvert (covered market) de Saint-Germain at 4/6 rue Lobineau, 75006
• La Dernière Goutte wine shop at 6 rue Bourbon le Château, 75006
• Pierre Hermé pastry shop at 72 rue Bonaparte, 75006
• Patrick Roger chocolate at 108 boulevard Saint-Germain

My February trip to Paris (just yesterday) was with a new transplant to Lux from Atlanta and a fast friend, Jeannie.  Piggybacking on the success of the Paris by Mouth tour, we decided to try another walking tour.  This time we did a scholar-led group walk of the Marais Mansions with Context Travel.   Given the time of year, our three hour walking small tour was even smaller – it was just the two of us!-- led by an art historian docent.  This outfit is larger than Paris by Mouth as they offer tours, or rather walking seminars, in architecture, art history and even food and wine in most all of Paris’s neighborhoods. (Though I'd stick to Paris by Mouth for food related tours.) They are in 23 other cities around the world. It's one thing to read about the places you visit, but it's something much richer when you are walking the streets with an expert who is willing to answer all your random questions.

The Marais Mansions tour was an incredibly informative walk through one of Paris’s most lively neighborhoods and one that bears all the scars of a city through many transitions.  The walk was a chronological story of the change taking place in Paris between 1550 and 1720 before the French Revolution and the modern era.  The docent was a lovely Parisian 30 year old with perfect English who brought history alive with just the right amount of facts, storytelling, and gossip.  We learned a ton, and by the time the three hours were over – we were ready to eat and shop.

Our eating and shopping options in the Marais were plentiful and were informed by two great websites that you should know about when traveling to a new city: Unlike City Guides and Spotted by Locals City Guides.  I use these sites a lot.  They have recommendations across the arts, bars, music, restaurants, shopping, snacks, etc in most of the big cities in Europe.   Both of the websites are curated by locals and pick up where many of the travel guides leave off.  I particularly find them useful for restaurants and shopping, and each recommendation has a full blog entry so you have more useful context to decide if it's something that will float your boat or not.  They both have mobile apps, which I don't pay extra for -- I typically just scan it in advance of a trip and jot down a few notes. 

THE EATING

Lunch: Chez Marianne, 2 rue des Hospitalières St-Gervais, a sit down cafe with Middle Eastern and Jewish specialties and a house wine called "Marianne."  You will need Google translate to guide you in picking four or five of the options for your mix and match lunch plate else you may be swimming in toomuchummus.

Late afternoon refreshment: Café des Musées, 49, rue de Turenne, a sit down cafe on a busy corner of the Marais.

Dinner snack: Candelaria, 52, rue de Saintonge, because I'm always on a salsa fix quest.

THE SHOPPING

You could spend all day in the quaint Marais between the museums, shopping, bars and restaurants.  Rue des Francs Bourgeois is the major shopping street, and you don't really need a list of places to hit.  Rue de Turenne is lined with men's clothing shops and  Rue des Rosiers (the Jewish area of the Marais) also has a lot of good shopping including a particularly fun and unique dress store I had read about: Heroines.  Jeannie got a gorgeous cape there.  She also got some red boats at another store on Rue des Rosiers in honor of Valentines Day (or actually because they were 60% off and from Paris.)

It's a Winter Waterland - Venice

You might be surprised to hear that among The Lonely Planet’s Top 25 Experiences in Europe, #5 on their list is “Venice in Winter.”  Having now been in Venice over New Years, I understand why it rates so high. There is something magical about Venice on a sunny winter’s day.  The light bounces off the water creating unbelievable photo ops, the tall buildings with narrow streets provide cocoon-like wind protection, and there’s the bustling of enough tourists to make it feel lively but not overrun. And when you’re not competing with 60,000 daily visitors in the summer, you are more likely to snap a photo without Susie from Tulsa photo bombing it.

Venice’s photographic overexposure might lead you to believe it’s a city you already know.  But can you really imagine a city without any cars, where all deliveries are done by boat, and where the smell of the sea – not GPS - is your guiding light?  It is not normal Italy.  Not everyone pinches your blonde haired/blue eyed seven year old.  English is the default language more quickly.   And, MOST service is not with a smile.  Venetians are notoriously grouchy, and with the exception of a few people, we found the locals to be some of the most unfriendly of all our European travel.  Then again, you wouldn’t like it either if your streets were clogged with untrained Paparazzi in trainers hoisting a map in your face with a directional question that can’t be answered.   Venice can’t be an easy city to live in.  We saw more pet stores than grocery stores, and while seeing food delivered by boat was picturesque imagine trying to get your IKEA wardrobe home.  Even with the lack of Venetian warmth, the magnanimousness of the city draws you in a way that catches you by surprise.

Venice is a city that is only truly understood through walking and getting lost.  Conventional wisdom tells you to toss the map and welcome the experience of getting lost, which works most of the time except when you are trying to get across the Grand Canal.  More useful advice is to keep the map, study the street names of those that cut through to get to the next neighborhood and don’t sweat the names of the other ones – 75% of which will dead end anyway.  Following the pack is also good advice as there are only a few routes that go through.  This funnel like experience means that you will be forced to crisscross the highly touristy areas to get from point A to B.  Once out of the fray however, the payoffs for going off-piste in the neighborhoods of Dusodoro, lower Castello, and Cannaregio are quiet back streets, charming cafes and unique stores.  In these parts of the city, you won’t find Venetian Universidad tee-shirts or masks made in China.  Instead you’ll be wowed by artists painting hand-made masks (some places which offer workshops) and shops with eye-popping Venetian glass and glass jewelry made on the neighboring island of Murano.

We (Brett) made some games out of walking by having each family member take turns in deciding which way to go at every crossroad.  My game idea (which I read online) was to go “Lion Hunting” in teams with our iPhones, only to realize that there weren’t near as many lions (the symbol of Venice) as we thought there would be.  I tried to audible by making  it a team game of snapping photos of bridges instead, but clearly I didn’t  “sell it” because no one was feeling my flow.  Instead I was told it was my turn to pick “which way” and “that, by the way Mom, you can’t pick straight again.”  Game or not, with 400+ bridges the visual rewards that come with every turn was more than enough to keep the troops moving.

We took the Vaporetto (water bus) when we arrived in Venice and again when we left with our luggage, but otherwise we did everything on foot.  We had no intention of breaking the bank by taking a taxi or gondola ride, and although the gondolier’s would consistently offer “Gondola, Gondola” every time you passed, it was never a hard sell.  The gondolier’s got plenty of business without having to beg for it, and our enjoyment was standing on a bridge watching them navigate the tiny canals and each other.  It all made parallel parking look so very JV.  

We stayed centrally located in a small six room bed and breakfast called La Villeggiatura near the Rialto Bridge and market.  We read about the place from a NYTimes “36 hours in Venice” article written in 2006. It was a great location and very comfortably and tastefully decorated, and a place we’d recommend staying for couples or families with older kids.  With any small place, voices carry and you’ll want to make sure that your children’s voices don’t disturb what could be honeymooners in the room above you.  Breakfast was included, but if you don’t already know this, Italian breakfast is really just tasteless white bread, marmalade croissants, and yogurt.  AM protein is not the Italian way. 

The best thing about our location was the proximity to some of the most well-known bacaros (Italian bars) serving cichetti (Venetian tapas) and wine.  Every early evening, we would return to the hotel to let the boys rest by watching a movie filmed in Venice (“The Italian Job” and “Casino Royale”) while Brett and I grabbed some cichetti and a drink to wash it down before dinner.   Cantina Do Mori (the oldest bacaro in Venice), All’ Arco (express-made cichetti with no tables or menu), and Osteria All Ciurma (a neighborhood bacaro) are all within three minutes of each other in San Polo neighborhood.  The bacaro experience is not to be missed.  Once you have your first glass of Prosecco, you won’t even sweat what’s happening with those voices back at the hotel.

Any sought after place, especially a floating theme park that absorbs tourists year round, requires a degree of vigilance.  You must mind your step at all times.  Slippery stone footbridges are aplenty.  Not all canal banks have railings.  With 100% of the population on foot, cutting a corner too tight comes at a cost.  Piles of domesticated litter rival the streets of Paris.  Similarly, there is good food to be had in Venice, but you have to work to dodge the abundance of spurious places pushing Tourist Menus and Free Wifi.  In Venice’s few thoroughfares, very bad (and often overpriced) restaurants are so successful in enticing undiscerning tourists that they don’t even bother to take down the computer printed “We have Air Conditioning!” window signs during the winter.   More than in other places in Italy, dining out on recommendations in Venice is highly advised. 

Venice has both Italian restaurants and Venetian restaurants.  In our experience, the familiar traditional Italian restaurants with pizza, lasagna, and red sauce tops out at good.  The better and more interesting options are the smaller-menued Venetian restaurants where fresh seafood and briny pastas take center stage.  Here then are some of our dining recommendations.   None of them have a Tourist Menu.   Many of them had seasonal radicchio braised into their seafood pasta dishes which caused me to swoon.

• Oniga: nice, cozy Venetian restaurant in Dorsoduro.  Located on a main square, so easy to find.  18 euros for lunch special that included pasta with mussels and a whole piece of grilled sea bass with polenta.  They stop serving lunch at 2:30.  Around the corner are two other restaurants that were highly recommended for dinner that we didn’t have time for: La Bitta (one of the few restaurants with a non-fish menu) and Osteria ai 4 Feri (a small place that was written up in Time.)
• Grom: gelato in Dorsoduro.   Unlike in Southern Italy, there is not gelato or cappuccino on every corner so you have to map out your gelato stops more strategically.  If you can stand the squeaky door and cranky service, stop in one of three Grom locations – including the one adjacent to Oniga in Dorsoduro – for a dark chocolate or pistachio scoop of gelato goodness.
• Rosso Pomodoro: a large, modern pizza and pasta restaurant in San Marco.   Because sometimes you need a go-to restaurant RIGHT now.  Located a stone’s throw from the commotion of San Marco square, Rosso Pomodoro has authentic Neapolitan-style pizzas made in wood burning ovens, above average pastas, a nice atmosphere and a kitchen that stays open all afternoon.   As a couple, you can skip it.  As a family, you may find yourself there more than once.  I had read somewhere that wood-burning pizza ovens weren’t legal in Venice (just like the glass blowing that was moved out to the island of Murano), but  something was lost in translation when I tried to get to the bottom of this conundrum with our harried server.
• Imagina: a casual café for an inexpensive lunch in Dorsoduro.  Great paninis and a hearty salad with tuna.  Off the main square where Oniga was located, along a canal – a good spot for either lunch or a drink.
• Birraria La Corte:  a large, modern Italian restaurant in San Polo.  Another solid family place (and one of the few that was open on New Year’s Day) with a bigger menu that worked for everyone.  Better than expected gnocchi.  Get the front room where the ambiance and lighting is better if you can.
• Antico Giardinetto:  a 7-8 table Venetian restaurant run by a nice couple in San Polo.  Each seafood pasta was fresh and special, and worth the more expensive price tag.  Though the fish options were the most memorable, there were also some lovely non-fish choices on the menu Two dinner seatings – one at 7:30 and one at 9:30.  Exactly as a cozy neighborhood restaurant is meant to be.  140 euros for a family of 5 with a bottle of wine.
• Caffe del Doge: a sit down coffee shop worth seeking out for a great cappuccino, interesting coffee drinks and decadent hot chocolate that will keep you kids motored for hours.  In San Polo.  A routine morning stop for us.
• All Frasca: an even smaller Venetian restaurant in Carnnaregio specializing in simple seafood dishes.  Hard to find, but worth the trip for a taste of simple mixed fish grill, pasta with anchovies and onions, fusilli with swordfish, olives and tomatoes and penne with shrimps and radicchio.  Front of house run by very friendly guy named Bruno.  Would be even more special in summer when restaurant spills out to many more tables onto quiet courtyard.  Only minor complaint was ordinary tiramisu and crème brule desserts.  Like Antico Giardinetto, also has two seatings and similar price point.  More talked about and expensive restaurant Boccadoro (which we didn’t have time for) is a few streets away. 

Of course I don’t need to tell you about the big sights like the Basilica di San Marco, the Palazzo Ducale and the Secret Passages Tour (book before you come!), and the Gallerie dell Accademia.  You will read all about then and no doubt visit them.   What I should mention however were some of the smaller sites and museums we visited that are worth a look, and perhaps depending on the attention span of your traveling company – a better alternative. 

• Ca’Rezzonico : an 18th century Venetian palace on the Grand Canal in Dorsoduro.  It is three floors of palace rooms with paintings, frescoes and decorative arts and a fourth gallery floor.  It’s small, manageable and interesting for all ages. The seven year old starting crying and heading for the exit with some of the disturbing art on the fourth floor, but don’t let this detour you. The first three floors are well worth the price of admission.
• Naval History Museum & Arsenale: A maritime museum in the Castello neighborhood that spans some 40+ rooms featuring scale models of Venetian built vessels and gondolas.  At less than 2 euros a person to get in, it’s dirt cheap and a welcome change of pace when you’re churched out.  It’s also worth the great views looking back at San Marcos and out to Lido.
• Da Vinci Museum:  Though not specifically Venetian, a permanent exhibit of over 120 different of his machine inventions is a fun hands on museum experience.  Exhibit housed in an old church in Dorsoduro.  Also includes dramatized video of DaVinci’s unsettled life in a sordid time with English subtitles (not for the squeamish.)

I apologize in advance for the obscene number of photos.  This was the short list.  My camera and I were having a mini love affair during our four days together in Venice.  Do not forget yours, and remember to pack your extra long lens.  And now for the rest of the Canalbum.