Ask most people which Italian city food writer Katie Parla knows best and they'll say Rome — and fair enough. She's lived there since 2003, published a new book on Rome's culinary history, and toured Stanley Tucci around the city for CNN's Searching for Italy. But ask Parla herself about her favourite breakfast on the planet and she'll point you 300 kilometres northeast, to a tiny counter by Venice's Mercato di Rialto.
That spot opens its shutters at 10am, Monday through Saturday, and it opens to a very specific scene: a crowd of local old-timers who have been drinking for hours already, all jostling for sandwiches. Parla has spent so much time in Venice over the past five years that she's practically a local too, and her order is worth copying — a tuna sandwich with radicchio and cren, the punchy horseradish typical of northern Italy. It's a good reminder that Venice's best eating often happens standing up, elbow to elbow with Venetians, not at a sit-down table with a canal view and a tourist menu.
The Rialto market itself is the oldest and most famous in Venice, and it's the anchor of her recommendations. Her guide also reaches beyond the main islands to Murano, the glassmaking island in the lagoon, where she flags studios worth the vaporetto ride. That's a useful nudge: Murano is often written off as a souvenir trap, but working studios there are still producing serious glass, and visiting one turns a half-day trip into something memorable.
What makes this guide interesting for travellers is the perspective. Parla isn't a Venice native — she's an outsider who put in the hours, learning which counters the locals queue at and which boat rides actually pay off. Her Venice is built on repetition: same market, same morning routine, same order. For a visitor with only two or three days, that's exactly the kind of intel worth borrowing. Go to the Rialto market area in the morning, eat standing at a bacaro-style counter, and treat the lagoon islands as a destination in themselves rather than an afterthought.
The full guide is behind a membership paywall (Roads & Kingdoms plans start at $6.50 a month), but the gist is clear: skip the generic Venetian tourist circuit, follow the morning crowd at the market, and take the boat to Murano with a specific studio in mind. If a seasoned food writer who has her pick of Italian cities keeps choosing Venice for her mornings, that says something about what the city still offers to anyone willing to eat on its terms.
