Editor Pick
Prosecco and Tagliere
- July 12, 2009
- Rated 5 of 5 by
sararevell from London, United Kingdom
If you want to get off the tourist trail and settle into somewhere comfortable and welcoming then a visit to Bifora is mandatory. From the outside, this Osteria looks like fairly unremarkable with its dated red and gold awning and dirty white paint job. One step inside though and you’ve arrived into a small medieval banquet hall.
Osteria Alla Bifora’s owner is Franco Bernardi, an ebullient Philippe Noiret look-a-like who conveniently, is a capable English and Spanish speaker. He has only been running the bar since 2006 but the way he inhabits it you would think he’s been there all his life. The ‘Truly Venice’ agent had given us Franco’s name and if he’s in, it’s worth asking for him personally. We visited on our first and last nights in Venice and he remembered us when we went back. I’m not implying that we were treated any better than the other customers on those nights but it did somehow make us feel a bit more connected.
We arrived early by Italian standards on the first night and the bar was almost empty, save a couple of old women and small resident dogs. Tired after our journey, we enquired about coffee but they don’t serve it. We asked Franco what he would recommend and before we knew it we had been talked into ordering a bottle of Prosecco and some tapas. The Prosecco, produced in the Veneto region (of which Venice is the capital), was light, bubbly, fruity, crisp and so delicious that any more thoughts of coffee were banished from our minds.
We made the mistake of ordering a ‘tagliere’, which is a platter of cold meats and cheeses. The ‘mistake’ part being that we ordered a large platter when a small one would have sufficed. We were presented with a lazy-susan sized plate of meats, which I suspect would have adequately fed a group of six or more. Representing the dairy corner was a small Jenga-tower of cheese, which looked like an afterthought rather than a legitimate part of the tagliere.
Not realising how vast the tagliere would be, we had also ordered some Baccala Mantecato (salt cod spread) and some sardines. The second time we went I made sure that we ordered a plate of fresh grilled vegetables to combat the first night meat overdose. All the food at Bifora was substantial and delicious but I particularly enjoyed the seafood. There is always something quite satisfying about eating food that’s been caught locally.
Franco works very diligently behind the bar, slicing meats for tagliere plates and pouring glasses of wine for the tides of patrons. Many of the locals stood at the bar under glowing Murano chandeliers that provide scant illumination to the dark stone walls.
Outside on Campo Santa Margherita, children ran around and locals walk more small dogs. Franco shared a round of grappa with us at the end of our last night. It was a bit rough on the palate after the Prosecco but when in Venice…
From journal Venice: Prosecco, Gelato and la Giudecca