Episode 1 Rick Stein: From Venice to Istanbul

With great respect,

a lot of people might say that this vehicle is a bit posh.

I know, I know, but I got so fed up with that poxy old camper van.

-Hang on, that was mine!

-It was a nightmare.

I could never change gear in it.

GEARBOX GRINDS

Before that, we had the Land Rover.

It was so noisy - and it was just juddering and shaking.

It's a farm thing.

You know, I'm getting a bit old -

and I'm really, really enjoying the vistas of sea and mountains.

Absolutely breathtaking.

This is the start of a gastronomic road trip from Venice to Istanbul -

around 3,000 miles...

..through one of the world's greatest civilisations

that lasted over 1,000 years,

right up to the 15th century.

A melting pot of East and West -

the Byzantine empire -

that not only shaped and influenced

the countries of the Eastern Mediterranean,

but it spiced up the food of the West

and even gave us the fork, which came in very handy indeed.

BELLS RING

So, I'm on another culinary journey,

this time starting in Venice,

a city I know and love for its fabulous, simple cuisine -

fish cooking, largely -

and going all the way to Istanbul.

Now, I'm no historian, I'm a cook.

But I love the golden culture of the Byzantine empire.

I'll be dropping bits of history here and there,

but basically, it's about the food.

After Venice, Croatia

and then Albania.

No idea what the food's like in Albania.

But after that, Greece.

I love Greece, it's part of my past.

Then to Turkey, which again, I know and love

and finally, the fabulous, exotic city of Istanbul.

Many of the dishes I'll find on this really long journey

I'll cook back here on the Greek island of Symi,

not far from the Turkish coast.

I look upon Venice and Istanbul like two bookends of my journey.

And I start in a place that made an absolute fortune

out of trade with Byzantium...

..Venice.

I wouldn't dare to start pontificating on Venice,

the most written-about city in the world,

immortalised over and over again by the likes of Shelley and Byron,

Lawrence, Ruskin, Hemingway and Henry James -

and probably Alan Whicker, who went everywhere.

I remember the first time I came to Venice.

I was on a water taxi, going through these little canals

and I remember the cooking smells from people's kitchens,

that every few yards would change.

One minute, I'd be smelling seafood dishes

and then, a waft of cooked pasta.

And then, mussels and then again, roast chicken.

And because there are no cars here,

their sense of smell is so acute, so pronounced.

For a cook, it's fabulous.

Unfortunately, these days, home cooking is a bit of a rarity,

because Venetians are being offered

ridiculous sums of money for their properties.

No doubt for hotels, for the never-ending tide of tourism,

which was only a tiny trickle in the days of Byron and his cronies.

And I just love the opening few lines to Byron's Ode To Venice,

which run, "Oh, Venice, Venice

"When thy marble walls Are level with the waters

"There shall be a cry of nations o'er thy sunken halls,

"A loud lament along the sweeping sea!"

This idea that if Venice, as it must,

sink into the water some day, how much we'll all miss it.

How much a part of our imagination Venice is.

And that's why the tourists are here.

Why shouldn't we applaud their enthusiasm and love

for this fantastic city?

I have it on great authority that your average tourist

will spend nine euros for a cup of coffee in St Mark's Square,

followed by a slice of pizza

and maybe a glass of prosecco and/or an ice cream.

I mean, it has to be done.

A bit depressing if you're a restaurateur like Francesco,

who gets very cross indeed.

FOGHORN BLARES

This is what we say at Carampane.

No pizza, no lasagne and no touristic menu,

because we want to share our food, not touristic food.

We say that we don't know how to do the pizza,

because we are too stupid to learn how to do it.

Thank you.

This has just come from the market.

I just love this, they're such a small restaurant,

they've got to use a table to do the prep,

but it's very sort of convivial.

Rather enjoying it myself, I must say.

This, at Francesco's restaurant, is famous -

and a really delicious starter.

It's prawns they call schia -

dusted in flour, fried very quickly and served in lovely paper cones,

something they've done for years.

I think this is the right thing to do on a dull morning like this.

'I'm having lunch with a man

'who epitomises everything I admire about Venice -

'Francesco da Mosto -

'as Venetian as they come.'

Rick, alla nostra salute.

-Same to you. Salute, cheers!

-Cheers!

I just want you to tell me about what Venice is like,

because really, what I'm trying to get over

is the enormous power of the Venetians -

the biggest maritime nation in the world.

You must feel a real sense of pride

that your family were part of all that.

It depends.

With all my ancestors,

sometimes I feel that weight a little too much on my shoulders.

But then, I look at those that went to prison

and so, I think I'm a little better than them.

This is a ducat. This was this was the coin of Venice for 500 years.

-Always the same coin.

-Gosh.

It is funny, because the value of that was that you could buy

an item of clothes,

-have a good dinner with friends...

-For this?

One of those.

..and the graces of a courtesan of average beauty.

-Fab. I'll drink to that.

-Me too!

CLINK LAUGHTER

Now, this is a dish they've been serving

here at the restaurant Carampane for a very long time.

It's like a seafood ragu with spaghetti.

It starts with a base of onions and vegetables and some garlic,

all finely diced and fried until soft,

which doesn't take too long.

Then it's squid, along with prawns

and then, some tiny scallops -

"queenies", we call them in Cornwall.

Now, a generous glass of white wine...

..along with some brandy.

Let it reduce a tad,

and then put in some clams, straight from the Rialto market

and mussels.

Sea snails, they're called "murex".

They're like whelks with spikes on.

Next, very important shellfish stock

and a touch of the Byzantine empire here,

with the infusion of spices.

I can see cinnamon, nutmeg,

cardamoms, coriander,

cumin and cloves -

that's put in as a bouquet garni -

and then, curry powder.

That came, no doubt, from trading with the Byzantine empire.

This cooks now for about 20 minutes, until it's almost ready

and then, in goes passata,

olive oil, parsley

and now, serve with spaghetti.

Now, this is important.

The spaghetti goes into the seafood sauce for just a minute, to finish.

Not like so many, who drain and serve the spaghetti separately

and plonk the sauce on top.

Do you do that?

'Because I do.'

-Oh, fantastic.

-Cassopipa with a seafood sauce, spicy.

I think it is a meeting between East and West.

This is so good!

I like this thing that...

To do this, they were putting it in the pot with spices,

but it was not only food that came from the East.

I make an example - the fork.

The fork just arrived in nearly the year 1000,

from the princes of Byzantium to a doge.

And from that, we have the fork.

And at that time, all the people from...

..the Vatican... The Pope said that is the symbol of the devil.

-Like the...

-Exactly!

LAUGHTER

Venice was admired by the trading nations of Europe.

Maybe "admired" is the wrong word.

She did things her own way

and for centuries, bucked convention.

I think Venice was viewed

by the rest of the trading nations in Europe

rather like the extremely attractive

though mysterious single woman

who joins a cosy dinner party.

There's a bit of suspicion, there's envy,

and yes, maybe some admiration -

maybe too much admiration.

But whatever it is, the dynamics are changed.

She was unlike anywhere else in the world.

She even had her own calendar,

where the years started on the 1st of March

and the days began in the evening.

One of the most important and popular delicacies in Venice

is the tiny snack they call "cicchetti".

A Venetian like Francesco

cannot walk more than 50 yards without a cicchetti,

washed down with a glass of prosecco.

And after that, another cicchetti.

-Buongiorno.

-Buongiorno.

THEY SPEAK ITALIAN

It is very difficult to decide with what to start.

-I know. Well, I'd love to have some octopus.

-Octopus.

And actually, probably start with a bit of the baccala.

These are three different makes, because this is with garlic,

it is mixed with olive oil,

or cooked in the oven with anchovies and milk.

Oh! Choices, choices...

-I'll have the garlic.

-The garlic.

Do you want anything... Something to wash everything down?

-Oh, I think so.

-A little prosecco?

Yeah, I think a prosecco would be a good idea.

FRANCESCO SPEAKS ITALIAN

So, just... They're a bit like tapas, isn't it?

So, it's a like little buy, come and...

You know, you can go around all Venice, from one end to the other,

-but this is one of the best.

-Gosh!

They're lovely.

What a convivial thing to do, then - just go from bar to bar,

a bit of something to eat here...

I think that is a normal thing for Venetians.

You go "a cicchetti" - it means "bar to bar".

Cos it's something that...

When you have a glass of wine, you have a thing like this.

You are just happy, you can speak.

It's not only just drinking a glass of wine - eat something that is good.

Can we have another?

FRANCESCO SPEAKS ITALIAN

-So good!

-Which one?

Octopus.

'Fabulous.

'If you ever come to Venice without going "a cicchetti",

'you're missing a real treat.

'And now, it's time for me to cook.'

And what a place to cook all those dishes from my travels -

brought back here to the Greek island of Symi.

Well, someone on my journey from Venice to Istanbul

said the journey seemed like a pearl necklace -

I suppose, with the two biggest pearls at either end -

Venice and Istanbul -

but lots of lovely, glistening pearls all the way.

And to me, the island of Symi here is like the centre of the necklace.

All the architecture on this island is Venetian

and over there is Turkey.

I mean, the Greeks have got a word for it - "omfalos".

It means "the navel", it means "the centre of everything".

And Symi is that for me.

I am indeed a lucky man.

When you close your eyes and dream of Greece,

these are the pictures that fill your dreams.

And although I'll be travelling all over the place

searching for recipes,

this is where I'll be coming back to cook.

These dishes, that I've borrowed from cafes, bars and restaurants,

like this fabulous pork chop, coated with crushed walnuts.

It's really lovely and it's from Croatia.

And there's this brilliant rabbit stew from Albania.

You've GOT to cook that.

And of course, the most famous barbecue dish in the Aegean -

souvlaki, from Greece, of course.

And this - it's Sultan's Delight, from Turkey.

But first, a great dish from Venice.

So, this is gnocchi with crab,

or gnocchi con grancevola.

Gnocchi, as every aspiring Italian chef knows,

is made from a mixture of flour and mashed potato,

with an egg that binds it all together

and of course, seasoning.

But I chose to do this dish because it's really simple -

like so many Venetian dishes -

and it's full of spicy flavours.

I'm just mixing this to make a really stiff paste

and I might have just put a little bit too much egg in there,

so I'm just going to add a little bit more flour in...

..just to make sure it's easy to roll out.

Yes, gnocchi. I think it means "knuckles".

It means "little knuckles" and it looks like knuckles.

I like to think my gnocchi is more like little tiny pillows,

because it implies a certain amount of air in them and lightness.

Knuckles are a bit heavy.

They used to say in Venice, "Gnocchi day? It must be Thursday."

Cos all the restaurants served gnocchi on Thursdays.

There we go. Right, just...

..rolling it out into a long tube...

..then I'm going to cut it into little pillows.

Ah, Just get my board...

Oh! Captain Chaos!

Captain Chaos, that's what my wife calls me.

Right...

So, you don't really need to do a timing here.

Just keep them in the water

till they start popping up to the surface.

-FOGHORN

-Ah.

Looking there, it's so perfect. You can see the ferry coming in.

I mean, I was just watching that this morning,

reversing up into that tiny harbour.

It looked as big as the harbour.

I mean, you can see why the Greeks are such great seamen,

navigating into these tiny little island harbours.

Fascinating!

I'm just resting the cooking,

just to keep them moist for the finished dish.

OK, now to make the sauce.

The dish in Venice is called "gnocchi con grancevola",

which means "spider crab" - "gnocchi with spider crab".

But this is an island, it's Symi. We don't have spider crabs here.

They do have these frozen Alaskan king crabs,

I must say, they're brilliant for getting the meat out of

and actually, really tasty.

Going to make a lovely, lovely dish.

So, I'm just going to shred this a bit.

Normally, I'm always saying to keep this crab as lumpy as possible,

but I need to shred it up to go with the sauce and the gnocchi.

There we are, that's fine.

Now, I'm just going to make a shellfish stock

with some of the crab shells and some prawns, so...

I just really enjoy cooking like this.

I suppose it's what I do best, is cooking seafood, cooking shellfish.

I'm only just using the knuckles here,

because that's where I won't have got most of the meat out, like that.

This is worth taking a note of, really,

because it's a really good base for a stock, a sauce, a soup.

And it's very simple.

Just a bit of seafood, garlic,

tomato puree,

a healthy pinch of flaked chilli and water.

It's a taste that will make your tongue smile.

I'm just mashing this down to get as much flavour as I can

out of these lovely little shrimps from Symi

and the prawns and the crab shells.

I mean, sometimes I like to

actually put all the shells in a liquidiser and blitz them up,

but it does mean that the sauce then has a slightly grainy texture to it.

This time, I'm just mashing them down.

That's coming up to a boil, just a little bit of salt.

Let it all simmer down... I've forgotten one thing -

the spices.

Now, this is coriander, nutmeg,

cloves, turmeric, chilli,

a couple of other spices.

It is the very taste of Venetian seafood to me.

It's not like Indian spicing, it's much more subtle, but it just works.

It's very interesting to me, because they're all linked -

Byzantium, all those spices coming from such places as India,

all the way from the East

and into Venetian cooking.

Just pass that through the sieve.

I'm just pushing down all those shells,

to extract the flavour.

Right...

..to finish the dish.

Warming through the gnocchi...

So, there we go. Lovely.

I just finish off the sauce by stirring in some butter

and then folding in that delicious crab

and finally, a sprinkle of parsley.

Like so many Italian dishes, this is very simple.

This is...what? A bit of flour, potato,

Venetian spices and great, sweet pieces of crab.

Look at that. Look at that.

Before I went to Venice, people are saying,

"Oh, the food in Venice is not as good as the rest of Italy

"and a lot of it is a complete rip-off", you know?

Tourists, all that sort of thing.

Is that a rip-off? I don't think so.

I was just thinking,

this has to be one of the most photographed shots in the world,

with the dome of Salute in the distance there.

And how substantial it is.

And you sort of think,

out of extreme adversity comes something like Venice,

because if you think,

Venice started as a result of the end of the Roman Empire,

when all these hordes of Goths and Visigoths

were streaming into Italy,

murdering, raping, pillaging -

and people came to these squelchy islands of sand and clay,

just to get out of all the destruction.

And gradually, they built up this.

They became the largest trading nation in the world,

but still, when you look at it,

to me, there's just a little air of impermanence about it,

because Venice is sinking, the water is rising.

But that makes it perfect.

I don't like permanence.

At my age, why would I?

Even when I was at school,

I knew that Venice was sinking into the mud and the sand,

to eventually end up like Atlantis -

lost beneath the waves.

One of my favourite places here -

and I think it's as important as any museum -

is the Rialto fish market.

It's got the freshest fish I've ever seen

and for a fish lover, it's a sheer delight.

But now, the developers want to get their hands on it,

because they say the local population is dwindling

and this prime piece of property can do its job

in a much cheaper area, out of the city.

Hence the defiant flags with the Venetian lion saying,

"Rialto - do not touch."

Luca Furlan is the son of a prominent hotel owner here.

It's very nice to see the younger generation taking over,

like it is with my sons.

Although young, he's seen a few changes

and feels the tide of tourism is getting ever stronger.

Do you feel proud to be Venetian?

Yes, I feel proud and I love this city.

In the last few years, a lot of people are leaving Venice.

The demographic numbers are going down, you know?

From the '90s, 120,000 living here

and now, we are only 55,000

and I want still to keep the traditional...

Why are people leaving, then?

The price of property goes up,

some tourism reasons,

so that's why a lot of people are leaving.

Especially for the property price, you know?

It goes up in the last years in a crazy way, a crazy way.

But maybe at this point, we need some more Venetians living in the city!

I said to Luca, I wanted him to cook

one of my favourite dishes of all time,

that spaghetti vongole - pasta with clams.

OK, so first of all, some olive oil,

then we'll use a little garlic.

I was interested to see that he chose these clams - tellin.

It showed to me that he knows a thing or two.

They're so deliciously sweet.

OK, now the clams are starting to open.

We use...

There you go! We use a little bit of wine.

So you see, they start to open one by one, you know?

And they have inside a little bit of seawater,

so this makes the dish even more intense to taste.

And then, use a little bit of broth, seabass broth.

So, you're obviously enjoying this. When did you start cooking?

-How long have you been doing it for?

-Since I was very young.

With my grandmother first.

She started to teach me how to cook

and this was one of the first dishes

she actually made me do at home, you know?

So, she gave me the passion for the kitchen.

Have you done any TV before?

-No, never.

-Well, it's a really good idea to do something

you're very, very familiar with,

cos then you can concentrate on talking to me.

LAUGHTER

So, what's next then?

So, after this, we are boiling the pasta.

And that's always boiling in every Italian kitchen - the pasta boiler.

Yes.

I need one of those.

I won't cook completely the pasta in the boiling water.

I want to get the pasta cooked in the clams,

so the pasta will get the flavour.

I remember the first time I tasted this, years ago in Venice.

They cooked that pasta in the broth, but you finish it in the broth?

Absolutely, that gives more flavour to the dish.

That's how you get that very gleamy finish to this dish.

Well, I never realised that before.

So, here we are.

Yeah, you can smell this is done.

Smell, smell it!

'Luca chops up parsley and chives.

'That's what I like about making these programmes,

'you're always picking up new things.

'By finishing the pasta off in the pan,

'it gives it more depth of flavour and a better texture.'

There we go. So, you see how creamy this pasta is? It's fantastic.

-I'm loving it.

-A little olive oil...

He finishes the dish off with grated bottarga.

All the trendy chefs in Italy and around the Mediterranean

are using this year's star product, bottarga.

This is really interesting. This is made from seabass,

but it's essentially the roe of the fish -

normally grey mullet -

which is salted and dried.

It's got this lovely sweet, salty, fishy taste

and if you get the salting right,

it's got this seductive sweetness to it, too.

That looks really lovely.

There we go.

-Fantastic.

-Wow.

I love this bottarga.

The thing about this is those little, tiny shells.

It just seems very sophisticated, somehow.

Yeah, and very delicate.

That's why kids can have it, because they are sweet

and they have this salt from the sea taste

and very easy to eat, eh?

I love this dish. One of my favourites.

I totally agree, and you...

I'd just like to say, thank you very much.

-An honour to cook for you. My pleasure.

-My pleasure, too.

Religion in the Middle Ages was linked unashamedly to tourism.

They needed people over their threshold to help pay their way.

And the biggest crowd puller for the pilgrims and the worshippers alike

were the bones of a saint.

Better still, a whole body.

And better still, it would be great if it was an apostle.

St Mark is in Alexandria,

in Egypt, buried.

The Venetians get to hear about it

and they go over and they steal his body.

How do they steal it?

They put him in that big basket

and they cover the body in pork,

and what you're seeing there

is three, four, five turbaned gentlemen,

who are all appalled by the smell of pork.

Therefore, they don't inspect the basket.

It comes to Venice

and becomes the basis for this fabulous basilica.

When I knew I was coming to Venice,

I had to make a beeline for the Lido,

that long stretch of sand and pine

that shields Venice from the Adriatic.

It's a place where the great and the good

and the not-so-good came for centuries.

Byron swam the length of it.

In fact, he swam everywhere in Venice.

And people like the Windsors would come here to bathe.

Winston Churchill would sit on the beach,

chomping on a cigar, staring at the sea.

DH Lawrence would get very grumpy

over the displays of opulence and luxury.

And Thomas Mann spied a striking Polish boy on the beach

and turned him into the centrepiece of Death In Venice.

These very expensive beach tents at the grand Hotel Excelsior

made it really easy for me to think of the knights and foot soldiers -

all 35,000 of them -

who were trapped here in 1202.

They couldn't afford to pay the fare to the Venetians

to ferry them to the Crusades.

Just looking down this row of tents, which are beach huts,

they could have been the knights' tents.

This is where they were camped. I bet it was just here.

Then, the Lido was just a strip of sand,

but you could imagine them in the early morning light,

stumbling out of their tents - maybe some armour hanging up,

probably in their vests, a bit of chainmail,

the odd horse hanging around, a fire going,

thinking, "Where's our boat?"

This famous hotel, the Excelsior,

is almost an architectural statement of the journey I'm about to take -

a mixture of West meets East.

It was here I met up with Robin Saikia,

a British writer who, like many before him,

fell in love with Venice and the Lido in particular.

-Ah, look at that.

-Maestro!

Risotto de go. Bon appetit.

I know about this dish, because it's made with little gobies,

which are the sort of things

little boys catch in rock pools, back in Padstow.

It is very typical of Venetian cooking.

It's just quite a lowly ingredient.

They never overdo it.

Very, very simple. Never more than two or three ingredients.

The result is always fantastic.

Tell me about the Lido.

I mean, it's such a total contrast to Venice itself, isn't it?

Completely. This stretch of land is where Venice really all began.

You had this city, 1,000 years ago, starting from scratch.

They had nothing but this wonderful beach

and the island up at Torcello and the lagoon.

-That was it?

-That was it.

And they had to survive

and find a way of building this extraordinary city we see today.

But it all started here.

That's where the romantic origins of the city really are -

out on this stretch of beach.

Oh, fab!

-There you go. Grazie.

-And this is...bigoli?

Bigoli in salsa.

-Bigoli in salsa.

-Bigoli in salsa.

Bon appetit.

-Thanks.

-It's perfectly in order, if you dine as a Venetian.

You will have five courses, all of them manageable, like this.

What you might call an elegant sufficiency.

It's absolutely the right amount.

Well, it's just onion with a bit of anchovy in it.

The sweetness of the anchovies goes with the onion.

Pasta cooked to perfection...

And what more could you want?

Well, I know you have a way of using your hands to say

something is really special, which is... I think it's like...

Buono.

-Yeah, not bad. A bit Anglo-Saxon.

-A bit like my dancing, I think.

You'll have to work on that!

Scampi la buzara.

Oh, that looks good!

Wow. Fritto misto.

Oh, great!

-Bon appetit.

-Grazia.

-Grazia.

This looks fab!

I just love your book about the Lido.

Just tell me how you came to write it.

Just the way you found the Lido in the first place.

Well, I used to come here as a kid,

when I was so high.

I was here on a school trip when I was about 15

and there were ten of us.

Two of us got left behind after the trip finished

and we were staying over at the hotel.

Our art master said, "There are three things I don't want you to do.

"Don't go to Harry's Bar, don't drink grappa

"and don't go to the Lido, because you will be picked up

"and you'll end up dead in a swimming pool

"somewhere by Lake Garda."

So, anyway, that night, we went down to Harry's,

drank a bucketful of grappa, came over,

met a group of other young guys,

piled into a car, down to Albaroni.

On the beach, spent all night drinking wine and cooking fish

-on a wood fire on the beach.

-Oh, great!

And at that moment, I suddenly realised

that there was this unbuttoned paradise of the beach out here,

only 15 minutes away from this museum city.

So for me, it's a very romantic and very resonant place.

Oh, lovely.

That is special.

You must have eaten a million tiramisus in your life...

Yeah, but not many very good ones.

Light as champagne, beautiful chocolate...

It's all in the sponge.

You should not encounter a kind of bedrock of...

-..Of stodge.

-..sludge.

It's absolutely as light as the cream, the sponge.

This is tiramisu pick-me-up.

MUSIC: Libiamo Ne Lieti Calici by Giuseppe Verdi

First, separate a couple of eggs,

or as they say in Venice, "Separare due uova."

Then, give the whites a good whisk...

Montare a neve.

..Until it's soft, fluffy peaks.

No, I'm not going to translate that one.

And now, icing sugar onto the yolks.

Unire zucchero ai rossi di uova.

This is really good therapy.

Un' ultima terapia.

Now, add a generous dollop of marscapone.

Una generosa cucchiaiata di mascarpone.

And a good shot of vanilla essence.

Essenza di vaniglia.

Frullare con fantasia.

Whisk away with abandon.

When do you think tiramisu was first created?

1840?

No.

1866?

No.

It was 1960.

The same year that spaghetti bolognese came to London,

but not on toast.

And now, freshly brewed espresso.

Un caffe espresso fumante.

And a generous helping of Marsala wine.

E un bel bicchiere di Marsala.

Earlier, I made a light sponge.

Light as the proverbial feather,

with three eggs, caster sugar,

plain flour, 25 minutes at 180.

Yes, buonissimo!

And now, assemble.

First, the creamy, custardy eggs.

I can't be bothered to translate that.

Dip the sponge in coffee and Marsala.

Inzuppare... Oh, forget it!

More cream, please!

Piu crema, per favore... Per fav...

Per favore? Per favore.

Finally, chocolate generously lavished on top.

E in fina cioccolato in quantita.

Perfetto!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

It'd be so easy to think of Venice

just inhabited by tourists and pizzas.

But this area, Giudecca, is the heart of shipbuilding

and it's also where many students live

and where the prison is, too.

And this restaurant caters for all who live around here.

It's called the Food and Art Cafe.

Basically, very simple Venetian dishes, really cheap.

It's a worker's canteen.

This is Irene -

and she's cooking probably the most famous dish in the whole of Venice,

and that is fegato alla Veneziana.

Liver and onions.

IRENE SPEAKS ITALIAN

She just said she's putting wine in with the onions,

because it adds flavour, but it also softens the onions.

I've always found it quite odd that in a place like Venice,

which is so famous for its seafood,

why liver should be the most popular dish.

And I've got this theory.

Years ago, we were filming in Cove, in Ireland,

where lots of liners used to go from Ireland to the States, to New York.

And there was a real love of liver and onions there

and it came from the fact that all the beef

was sent on the liners for all the passengers,

but the offal - particularly the liver, which doesn't keep -

was given to the locals.

And I suspect that's the same here.

You think of Venice, a great maritime power needs all that meat,

probably salted down for the Navy.

The offal gets given to the locals.

IRENE SPEAKS ITALIAN

She just said, this is a very popular dish,

adored by workmen, students, even tourists.

They come flocking here for it.

What I love about the way she's cooking it

is the enormous amount of white wine she's put in there.

And I'm sure that's going to make it taste wonderful.

Finally, she's just added a pizzico of sugar -

just a pinch of sugar to give an extra sweetness to the onions.

THEY SPEAK ITALIAN

Oh, I know what that means. "Ready to eat"!

Grazia. Looks nice.

Mmm.

Well, this is very nice.

Fegato alla Veneziana - liver and onions.

I really like this restaurant. It's simple, clean and tidy.

You come here for really good value food -

12 euros for three courses.

I was quite amazed, talking to a couple at my hotel last night,

who'd just been to a little pizzeria just off St Mark's Square

and paid 60 euros

for two pieces of lasagne about this big!

I feel pretty safe in saying

that Venice's working class days are well and truly over.

The money coming from tourism must be eye-watering.

But if you look around,

there are still signs on the walls showing that not so long ago,

the basic requirements for a comfortable life were all here.

Here, it's coal. "Carbon".

There, wine. "Riva Del Vin".

Here, "Ruga Dei Spezieri" -

"The passage of spices".

Well, I must say, this is the most obvious thing,

but I've never seen it before.

A fruit and veg market on a boat.

It has to be in Venice, but such beautiful produce.

I've just been looking up and down it and of course,

this is the best time of year for produce.

I love these bitter greens there. We don't get enough of those back home.

Please don't give me a hard time about complaining about our markets.

They're very good!

There we have aubergines, green beans, look at those.

I love courgette with its flower on. It's beautiful.

Great mushrooms here.

Porcini and chanterelle there.

THE mushrooms of the autumn, to me.

More mushrooms - and look at those white peaches there.

Got to be a white peach in a good Bellini.

And of course, these misshapen tomatoes..

This is what they're always saying when we have a go at supermarkets

about their uniform tomatoes.

We're thinking of something like that.

And borlotti beans - fresh borlotti beans. Lovely.

You can't get them very often.

And here, some potatoes.

"American", what are they?

Oh, sweet potatoes! I see. "American potatoes".

Looks like some chillies there. Perfection.

This is Arrigo Cipriani,

the son of the founder of the most famous bar in the world -

Harry's Bar.

And this drink, the Bellini,

made with the crushed flesh of white peaches mixed with prosecco,

was the favourite tipple of Hemingway,

Orson Welles, Peggy Guggenheim...

Too many to mention.

Oh - well, Noel Coward and me.

Bellini is named after the 14th century Venetian artist

made famous for his portrayal of natural light,

which Venice has in abundance.

I can see the inspiration shining from this glass!

Now, this is carpaccio -

thin slices of raw beef, either fillet or sirloin.

And this very famous dish was named after

another 14th century artist, Vittori Carpaccio,

possibly reflecting the distinctive reds and whites

he so often used in his paintings.

Anyway, these thin slices of the sweetest beef you've ever tasted

are dressed with a lacing of mayonnaise,

which has a touch of Dijon mustard and lemon juice.

Delizioso!

Cheers!

Well, Arrigo, I suppose my first question is,

what do you think of things like three-star Michelin restaurants?

Three-star Michelin restaurants in Italy -

they are not Italian restaurants.

I think an Italian restaurant is a trattoria.

You know, trattoria, where you are met by the family,

you can go every day and every day they have something different,

but there is another thing.

Anybody that comes in, any customer,

if he doesn't know the place, he's a little shy.

And this is a help.

I mean, you come in and you immediately find a bar.

It's something that gives you confidence.

I think that's why Harry's Bar remains so successful.

Yes. People come here and they know what they want

and they know what they'll get. Exactly.

And we don't impose "menu degustation", you know?

ARRIGO LAUGHS

I hate that!

Now, this is baccala mantecato -

and it's inseparable from Venice.

I love it.

They combine cooked flakes of stockfish,

which is air-dried cod,

with salt, pepper, garlic, anchovies,

potatoes, cream and olive oil.

And then, it's all whisked together.

Now, for someone that likes their fish -

I mean, really likes their fish -

it's a star dish.

That is so deliciously creamy.

If you never thought you'd like the idea of salt cod,

or dried cod, which this is, made out of stockfish,

think again.

This, to me, typifies Venetian cooking -

something apparently so simple

with such a special flavour.

I've been coming to Venice for many years now

and I've noticed that every time I come,

there are more and more tourists -

vastly more.

But, you know, I don't mind being a tourist.

It doesn't mean I have to buy a plastic gondola

that lights up on the mantelpiece.

For me, it means following my nose,

eating carpaccio,

drinking cold prosecco,

just watching people and realising

that if my pulse doesn't quicken at the first sight of the Grand Canal,

then it's time to see the doctor.

Venice, for the complete stranger, can be a little complex.

I think that's an understatement.

And so, may I introduce Cristina Pogozzo,

who is a living, breathing, fabulous guide to the city.

Cristina, I keep on having to pinch myself

to think I'm really here, because that is just...

Well, it's one of the greatest sights on Earth.

An extraordinary kingdom.

Isolated from the rest of the world,

but in touch with extraordinary different cultures

from the East and the Middle East.

So how did they get so wealthy? How did it all...?

Thanks to the trade.

Marco Polo is actually the first one that travelled to the Orient.

He came back home and he imported the spices.

So you got the trade and you had the salt as well, didn't you?

Which was...

Salt, sale, salario - salary.

Salario.

I knew there was a word that meant money.

Oh, yes, of course, you know.

We used to pay with a small bag of salt.

So you've got the salt, you've got the trade in salt,

but it was all based on food, really -

if you needed to be able to travel to trade,

you needed to preserve your food.

Food was power.

Split, Dubrovnik,

the Dalmatian Coast belonged to our domain,

so we could control the market.

This was the centre of the world if you're Venetian.

Absolutely.

You still have that arrogance. It's still, like...

I'm proud.

-What do you say in Venice about...? It's us and...

-Ah.

-Well, we have a nice saying.

-What?

This is Venice and the rest of the world on the other side.

The foresti, the foreigners.

Fantastic.

God forbid, Cristina, if you were sent away from Venice

and you could never come back here again,

what dish would you most miss?

Well, I love the seafood risotto.

This is really one of my favourite dishes.

I think all the skill, everything to do with Venice is in that dish.

When you taste it, the subtlety of it,

the way they incorporate the flavours of the shells

into the risotto, into the seafood brodo...

-Fantastic!

-So good. Delicious.

Seafood risotto.

I don't feel the need to peel vegetables

when I'm making stock, unless they've got sand or dirt in them.

There's a lot of flavour in the skins.

These fish are just little rock fish, really.

They're very cheap here.

If you were making this back in the UK,

just buy the cheapest fish.

Actually, this one is some sort of herring or sardine,

so I don't mind a little bit of oily fish in my stock, but not too much.

So I'll bring that to the boil and simmer it for about 30 minutes.

I found this in a hedge on my way to the kitchen this morning.

It's wild sage.

Now, olive oil, then onions and garlic,

and the rice.

It's called Vialone Nano.

It's revered in Venice.

But don't worry, Arborio is just as good.

What I was thinking with doing this

is how much I enjoy making a risotto.

I think everybody should have one good risotto in them.

It's one of those dishes you really need to learn.

When I'm writing recipes, I always put in precise ingredients

because I feel the first time you make something,

you need to know exactly how much salt,

how much pepper and so on and so forth.

But after that, you need to learn it and make it yours.

Now, white wine, for obvious reasons -

it has to be white, unless you're into a red risotto.

So, this is a seven-spice mix, which I got from Venice.

They are cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, coriander, chilli,

turmeric and nutmeg.

Just a big pinch of that...

into my risotto.

The fish stock is ready, fishy but not overpowering.

What makes this risotto special is that stock and the spice mix.

A touch of Byzantium, so common in Venetian seafood dishes.

Almost a little signature.

You can choose whatever seafood you like,

but my favourite is squid and red mullet.

I have a real weakness for both of them.

Like I always say, red mullet has that lovely, shellfishy taste.

I always have to have fried squid in the risotto.

You can mix the rest of it,

but I think squid and prawns are essential.

Then whatever you can get a hold of.

The squid has this fantastic sweetness.

But now I'm going to add some of these local shrimps.

I've taken the heads off, but I haven't...

I don't think I could take the shells off,

because actually, you can eat the whole thing.

I could cook risottos forever.

I love the way the dish builds up -

first the rice has to reach a point where it's absorbed

all that lovely stock.

Then it's joined by the seafood. It just needs a tad more cooking.

Now the mussels,

and the risotto will be done once they start to open.

A bit more stock,

and don't forget the mussels will release their lovely flavours too.

Now a taste.

The rice has got to have a little firmness in the middle,

but not too much.

Now...it's good.

Now to butter. Lots of butter to finish.

Venetian cooks are not shy when it comes to using butter,

because they want their finished risotto to have

the same lovely sheen on the top as Venice's lagoon

in the early evening.

Finally, I'm putting in crab - A, because I love the sweetness,

and B, I happen to have some in the fridge.

I'm very happy with that.

Let's serve it up.

Does that have the sheen? Yes, it does.

THUNDER RUMBLES

I feel extremely sad leaving Venice.

It's one of those places that just gets to you.

This weather only adds to my mood of melancholy.

Once upon a time, she was called La Serenissima -

the most serene republic of Venice.

It's that sort of city - romantic in the sun and soulful in the rain.

Arrivederci, Serenissima.

I'll see you again.

I have to.

THUNDER RUMBLES

Next time, I'm sailing across the Adriatic to Croatia, a first for me.

Fish in Croatia swim three times -

first in the sea...

This is my lunch.

..second in olive oil,

and third in wine.

For me, the more rugged the cooking, the better a lamb.

This is sensational.

I can't see!

It's the deepest, darkest fish stew I've ever tasted.

And so, my gastronomic journey continues.