Italy

A glutton’s guide to Venice

I have been writing about restaurants that are in or near cultural landmarks: museums, opera houses, historic sites. This column is an exception, as it is about one of the few restaurants in the world that is a cultural landmark in its own right: Harry’s Bar. It is an even more remarkable fact given that the restaurant is in the midst of probably the most culturally dense city in Europe, Venice. I must declare that I have eaten at Harry’s at least once, sometimes twice, on every one of the many trips I have made to Venice since 1977. I love it. Not everyone does – or maybe it’s more

venice

A chef’s twist on the Feast of the Seven Fishes

My Italian-American family gathers every Christmas Eve to cook a Feast of the Seven Fishes. And every year, it’s always just a little disappointing. Sorry, Mom. While the Feast must include seven distinct seafood dishes, there’s no correct way to prepare it. It’s entirely open to personal preference or family tradition and typically relies on whatever fish is readily available in the American northeast. Still, a touch of gourmet precision can help refine some of Nonna’s age-old recipes. The Feast is a quintessentially Italian-American tradition – one rooted ostensibly in Old World Catholicism and the abstention from meat until Christmas Day. Yet there’s very little record of it ever taking