I was standing behind my friend the other day as he ordered some espressi at the bar. Suddenly he let out a gasp. He’d ordered all three coffees in porcelain cups but our other friend preferred his in a glass. I glanced at the cups ranged on the bar to check that they weren’t still empty, but it was too late. All three were filled with perfect Italian espresso.
A recent article in a British national newspaper, said that coffee made in a traditional Italian moka ‘is often hugely bitter and over-extracted rocket fuel’. It goes on to say how ‘fiendishly difficult’ the moka is to use. I was so incensed by this that I felt I had to write an article. To quote a phrase of our time, what they said is fake news.
A selection of fish-based cichéti with a glass of local prosecco.
Venice is a city that most experience on foot. Even those residents that have boats do an awful lot of walking and most of that on unforgiving flagstones, and bridges that rise and fall five feet in space of a few yards.
With all that walking, especially in the summer when temperatures regularly top 30 degrees celsius, it would seem a good idea to stop every now and again, pop into a shady bar, and have a drink and perhaps a restorative bite. Well, Venetians would agree and this is how cichéti a typically Venetian snack food came to be.