Whether you’re a seafood fan, a pasta fiend, or simply want to get to know Venice’s food scene like a local would, you’re in the right spot. In a tourist epicenter like Venice, it can be all too easy to be sucked into a tourist trap that would have you believe you’re trying authentic Venetian food.

I can say this, because me and many of my friends and family have done the same thing! That’s why I’ve gone ahead and detailed the 7 top Venice food tours out there, that are well worth your time and money and will immerse you in local culture. Let’s jump right in!

Best Food Tours in Venice

	Eat, Drink and Repeat: Venice Wine & Food Tasting Tour	Private Food Tour – 10 Tastings with Locals in Venice	Venice Food Tour - Eat like a Venetian
Meeting Location:	Campo S. Giacomo di Rialto, 30125 Venice	Campo Manin, 30124 Venice	Basilica dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Campo S.S. Giovanni e Paolo
Tour Length:	2 hours	3 hours	3.5 hours
Start Time(s):	11:30 AM & 5:15 PM	Between 10:00 AM & 6:00 PM	11:30 AM & 5:30 PM
What’s Included:	Wine tasting and food, Local guide, Lunch, Dinner, Snacks and Alcoholic Beverages	10 food & drink tastings (vegetarian alternative available), guide for commentary of highlights of the city along the way	Dinner (5 Aperitivo stops in beautiful Cannaregio), alcoholic beverages, bottled water
	Check Tour Availability	Check Tour Availability	Check Tour Availability

Our 7 Top Picks For The Best Venice Food Tours:

1. Eat, Drink and Repeat: Wine and Food Tasting Tour in Venice
2. Venice: Private Food Tour – 10 Tastings with Locals
3. Venice Food Tour – Eat like a Venetian
4. Venice: Local Secrets of Venice Tapas & Wine Walking Tour
5. Experience Venice Like a Local: Small Group Cicchetti & Wine Tour
6. Venice: Food Tasting Tour with Cicchetti Dishes and Wine
7. Eat Like a Local: 3-hour Venice Small-Group Food Tasting Walking Tour

Venice Food Tour Reviews

1. Eat, Drink and Repeat: Wine and Food Tasting Tour in Venice

What to Expect on the Tour

Starting things off on the right foot, I bring you the Eat, Drink and Repeat: Wine and Food Tasting Tour in Venice. Even if you have a packed itinerary, I guarantee you have at least a couple of hours to fit in this either lunch or dinner tour!

It’s the perfect alternative to going out to eat, and you will be able to try and learn much more about classic Roman dishes than you would just by going out to a restaurant on your own.

It was actually surprising how much we tried and learned in just a couple of hours, thanks to our local expert guide to lead the way! While the food and wine are plentiful and delicious, you can also count on having a full-fledged walking tour complete with captivating anecdotes and historical accounts.

What Makes This Tour Great

There are plenty of cool stories and legends surrounding the different buildings, wine, and food in the area, so these 2 hours just fly by. While you shouldn’t expect a sit-down restaurant setting, you’re going to try enough food and wine to equate to a full meal.

More specifically, you’ll try 6 different, top-notch regional wines or cocktails, along with 6 or more food pairings. The guide is not only well-versed in the area’s history, but is a wine enthusiast and foodie themselves, which is invaluable to have in a foreign country!

With a small group size, it’s a very intimate and personalized experience, so you’re not just another head in a crowd full of people! It was so fun and full of fantastic tips and recommendations, that I’d say my entire Venice trip would truly have been different if I didn’t go on this tour.

Reserve Tour Now and Pay Later / Free Cancellation Within 24 Hours of Tour Start Time

2. Private Food Tour – 10 Tastings with Locals in Venice

What to Expect on the Tour

Next up, we have the fantastic Venice: Private Food Tour – 10 Tastings with Locals experience! This one is a bit longer than the previous tour, though you’ll probably notice that it’s because you’re receiving almost double the tastings with this selection.

One thing that I’ve come to realize is that Venice is an incredibly versatile city, with virtually endless food, wine, and tour options out there – this one feels friendly and welcoming.

When I say that, I mean like it felt like Venice had opened its arms and welcomed us, thanks to our fantastic tour guide who took us to more “local” or even “hidden gem” spots that I know I wouldn’t have seen, otherwise.

What Makes This Tour Great

Our guide was incredibly friendly, making it feel like we’d been friends forever – taking us around the city while sharing interesting facts and stories along the way.

She even asked us at the beginning of our tour about our specific interests, tailoring our time to make it as personalized to our tastes as possible!

Sure, we covered plenty of the typical “highlights” of Venice, though I’ll say I learned a ton of cool facts about various structures and statues that I hadn’t heard from other guides up until that point.

I loved the classic gelato and spritz tastings at local spots, where the atmosphere was lively and lighthearted, chatting with the rest of our group about our experience.

I made some friends, made some great memories, and definitely improved my perspective on certain dishes that didn’t quite taste the same in the US!

Reserve Tour Now and Pay Later / Free Cancellation Within 24 Hours of Tour Start Time

3. Venice Food Tour – Eat like a Venetian

What to Expect on the Tour

So, the first time I visited Venice, I thought I really had a solid grasp on what “Venetian” food was. After all, I’d done my Google search and found what I thought were the right dishes to try, and the right restaurants to stop at.

The Venice Food Tour – Eat Like a Venetian carefully led me back onto the right path, steering me clear of tourist traps with inauthentic dishes and to the good stuff steeped in tradition and flavor.

This is a tour that led us through the charming backstreets of the legendary city, with our knowledgeable guide there to answer all of our questions and explain everything in an easily digestible way.

What Makes This Tour Great

I discovered things on this tour that I know you won’t find on your average cookie tour, including plenty of cool houses, government structures, art, and of course, food and wine!

Meeting in the center of Venice, I found it easy to access and everybody seemed to just walk on over when it was time to begin. You’ll do more than just try different dishes – you’ll learn the history behind each one, adding to the experience!

Sample delicious cicchetti (a kind of Venetian tapas), crisp prosecco, fresh seafood, savory cheeses, and much more. If you’re looking to meet other travelers from around the world, this is also a wonderful opportunity to do so, with fun and adventure practically guaranteed!

Reserve Tour Now and Pay Later / Free Cancellation Within 24 Hours of Tour Start Time

4. Venice: Local Secrets of Venice Tapas & Wine Walking Tour

What to Expect on the Tour

The Venice: Local Secrets of Venice Tapas & Wine Walking Tour was one of the first I’d taken when I arrived in the city.  I’d wanted to check out some of the local bars but didn’t want to get caught in the tourist traps nor did I want to commit any faux pas without a local there to help me out.

Luckily for me, this tour helped me with both of those concerns, with a friendly, local guide to share their plentiful knowledge and make me feel like I know what I’m doing!

When you take one of the more run-of-the-mill Venice walking tours, it’s a situation where if you’ve taken one, you’ve taken them all. You’ll walk down the same main streets, hear the same history lessons and stories, and try the same restaurants.

However, if you want to stroll down the back alleys and streets and sample delicious selections of Cichetti, wine, and more, you’re in the right place.

What Makes This Tour Great

Our tour started off with us actually meeting our guide at the first traditional bar (bacaro), where he shared fun facts and historical information about the city of Venice and how it intertwines with its food.

After sampling some amazing cichetti and wine, we then went through quite literally hidden alleyways, over bridges and canals, and other routes that were clearly (and gratefully) off the main tourist path.

This was definitely a more laidback ambiance with a super friendly guide, but I preferred this atmosphere, making it easier to learn. While I’m not sure if it’s a rule, our group only had a couple of people in it, which made it that much more intimate and personal!

Reserve Tour Now and Pay Later / Free Cancellation Within 24 Hours of Tour Start Time

5. Experience Venice Like a Local: Small Group Cicchetti & Wine Tour

What to Expect on the Tour

If you’re in the mood for an unforgettable foodie adventure in Venice, look no further than the Experience Venice Like a Local: Small Group Cicchetti & Wine Tour!

This is actually one of the shortest tours on this guide, but it’s a great introduction to Venetian culture, highlighting some of the top landmarks and dishes while adding in some more local attractions.

After all, it’s the hidden gems where locals go for the best bites that have ended up being my favorites with the best dishes around!

One of the most standout points for me was how much variety and quality each food stop offered, along with the unwavering hospitality that made it feel like we were instant friends.

Just make sure you don’t eat before, because it’s definitely enough food for at least the equivalent of one meal! I tried many things that wouldn’t have caught my attention if I were at a restaurant, but I’m glad I did, as I ended up loving some of the new dishes!

What Makes This Tour Great

You can expect to try cod, risotto, seafood, different breads, olives, egg, and much more. The Venetian Cicchetti I noticed, is very seafood-oriented, with things like sardines or anchovies, or ricotta and polenta on little crostinis.

They’re made to be eaten before dinnertime, and this is how I discovered that some locals eat dinner all the way up until 10 pm! Considering how packed Venice can get with tourists, the fact that we got to experience quieter spots from the eyes of actual Venetians was truly something special.

Reserve Tour Now and Pay Later / Free Cancellation Within 24 Hours of Tour Start Time

6. Food Tasting Tour with Cicchetti Dishes and Wine in Venice

What to Expect on the Tour

This is such a quintessentially “Venice” experience, where you’ll not only get to try some of the city’s best food and wine; but you’ll also get to see plenty of iconic spots like the Grand Canal!

The Venice: Food Tasting Tour with Cicchetti Dishes and Wine experience is great for someone who just arrived in the city and wants to get a lay of the land (or water). Lasting 2.5 hours and with multiple start times available, it’s super easy to fit into even the busiest of schedules.

Meet up with your guide at Maddalena Square, right in front of the beautiful church there, and set off on your adventure. I found it was one of the most unique tours of its kin, taking us through winding streets to sample interesting bites with delicious local wines!

What Makes This Tour Great

I loved that we had a small group which made it easy to make friends while still navigating smaller eateries with ease, though you can also opt for a completely private tour.

The private tour is nice if you want the guide all to yourself or want to go on a more customized tour, but I felt that the small group setting wasn’t all that different!

Start off in the Cannaregio neighborhood, which is less visited but is one of the residential areas that many locals hang out in after work to grab some drinks. We then got to go on a traditional stand-up gondola and cross the Grand Canal to Rialto, which was so cool!

Once there, we headed to a little restaurant where I had dishes like black ink calamari, tuna balls with tomatoes, veggies, and more.

I enjoyed our stops at the Cichetti bars, as well as trying a local sandwich washed down with Venetian Spritz. My favorite had to be the delicious tiramisu though, which I wish I could make at home!

Reserve Tour Now and Pay Later / Free Cancellation Within 24 Hours of Tour Start Time

7. Eat Like a Local: 3-hour Venice Small-Group Food Tasting Walking Tour

What to Expect on the Tour

If you think that Italian food is just pizza and pasta, well, that’s completely understandable because I used to think the same! After all, 99% of Italian restaurants I’d been to before going to Italy offered that, and maybe some tasty breadsticks.

If you want to take full advantage of the versatile Venetian cuisine, then I highly recommend going on the Eat Like a Local: 3-hour Venice Small-Group Food Tasting Walking Tour!

As the title suggests, this tour lasts around 3 hours, but the time flies by with all of the delicious food and entertaining stories along the way! If you don’t know much about Venetian cuisine and would like a great introduction to the real stuff, this is a fantastic option.

What Makes This Tour Great

The guide is a local themselves, and shares insider perspectives and tips so you’ll always know where to get some good food and drink – even after the tour.

Our adventure started off right next to the famous Rialto Bridge, which is perfect for photo ops and history lessons. We then headed off on a guided walking tour, making a total of 8 different stops.

Of course, our first stop started with coffee and pastries, so with this foreshadowing I knew it was going to be a great time. We visited all kinds of different wine bars with Cicchetti snacks, totaling to a sampling of around 6 kinds of fish, cured meats, and plenty of wine!

I love this one for couples, families, or groups of friends who are new to Venice, so give this one a go!

Reserve Tour Now and Pay Later / Free Cancellation Within 24 Hours of Tour Start Time

A Guide to Food Tours in Venice

Step into a bàcaro at the end of the afternoon and the counter is lined with little crostini, one topped with whipped salt cod, another with marinated sardines. You point, you eat standing up, and you wash it down with a small glass of wine the locals call an ombra.

That is how Venice really eats, and it is nothing like the sad tourist menus near San Marco. A good food tour takes you bar to bar through the real thing.

I have led food groups through Italy for years, and Venice surprises people most. Here is how to choose a tour that finds the good bars and skips the traps.

Why Take a Food Tour in Venice

Venice has a bad food reputation, and it is half earned. The restaurants clustered around San Marco and the Rialto bridge serve frozen, microwaved food at high prices to people who will never come back.

The real Venice is the opposite, and it hides in plain sight. The bàcari, the old wine bars tucked down side alleys, pour cheap good wine and serve cicchetti, the local snacks, and a tour walks you straight to them.

This style of eating is hard to find on your own. The best bars have no signs worth noticing, change their cicchetti by the hour, and reward a guide who knows which counter is doing it right today.

Take a tour if you want to eat well in a city famous for feeding tourists badly. Skip it only if you already know your way around the bacari.

When to Go

Spring and fall are the best of it. April through June and September into October bring mild weather, lighter crowds than high summer, and the two seasons for moeche, the prized little soft shell crabs.

Summer is hot, humid, and packed. July and August fill the city to bursting, the canals can smell at low tide, and the heat makes a long walking tour hard work.

Winter is cold, quiet, and atmospheric, with two things to know. Carnival in February brings the fried frittelle and the crowds, and the acqua alta floods that run from autumn into winter can put water across San Marco, so check the tide forecast and pack boots.

Whenever you come, the Rialto market runs in the morning. The fish hall is closed Sunday and Monday, so plan a market visit for the back half of the week.

What You Will Eat

The Cicchetti

Cicchetti are the heart of it, the small plates you eat standing at the bar with a glass in hand. The classic is baccalà mantecato, salt cod whipped with oil into a soft cream and spread on bread or grilled polenta.

Then come the sarde in saòr, sardines marinated with onions, pine nuts, and raisins in the Venetian sweet and sour style that dates back to the days of long sea voyages. Around those you will find polpette, fried vegetables and seafood, and the soft white tramezzini sandwiches stacked behind the glass.

The ritual has a name, the giro di ombre, the round of small wines. You move from bàcaro to bàcaro, a cicchetto and an ombra at each, and that crawl is exactly what a good food tour is built around.

Beyond the Bar

Sit down for a meal and the Veneto kitchen opens up. Venice is rice country, so look for risotto, including the black risotto al nero di seppia stained with cuttlefish ink, and bigoli in salsa, a thick pasta in a sauce of slow cooked onion and anchovy.

The seasonal seafood is the real treasure. Moeche in spring and fall, the tiny schie shrimp served over white polenta, and fegato alla veneziana, calf liver with sweet onions, for those who want it.

Save room for tiramisù, which was born just up the road in Treviso. It is the region’s gift to the dessert table, and the version near you will almost always beat the one back home.

Where the Tours Go

Most tours work a district full of bacari on foot. Choose by the neighborhood, because each has its own crowd.

• Rialto and San Polo. The market and the oldest bacari sit here, steps from the bridge but a world away from its tourist menus. The best area for a first cicchetti crawl.
• Cannaregio. The quiet north, home to the original Jewish Ghetto and a string of bars along the Fondamenta della Misericordia. Where Venetians go out at night.
• Dorsoduro. The university side, with a big aperitivo scene around Campo Santa Margherita. Younger, cheaper, and packed at dusk.
• Castello. The largest and least touristed sestiere, residential and real once you leave the waterfront. Good for a tour that wants to lose the crowds.
• The islands. A longer tour can take the vaporetto out to Burano for lagoon seafood and its almond bussolà cookies.

Stay off the restaurants with photo menus and a host waving you in near San Marco. Those are the ones that earned Venice its bad name.

A Few Bars and Stops Worth Your Own Time

A tour cannot hit them all, so keep a list. Cantina Do Mori near Rialto claims to be the oldest bàcaro in the city, pouring since 1462, and it still does a proper counter of cicchetti.

All’Arco, also by the market, is a tiny lunchtime institution that locals and chefs both rate. Go early, because the good cicchetti sell out and the place is small.

The Rialto fish market itself is worth a morning on its own, ideally before the tour even starts. For the famous café, Caffè Florian on Piazza San Marco has poured coffee since 1720, but pay for the history and the orchestra, not the espresso.

What to Drink

This is where my sommelier side speaks up. The spritz was born in this region, and a Venetian as often as not drinks it with Select, the local bitter, rather than the brighter Aperol the rest of the world reaches for.

For wine, the ombra is usually a simple glass of prosecco or a local white. If you want the good prosecco, look for the bottles from the Valdobbiadene hills, which are a different drink from the cheap industrial stuff.

For something with more weight, the Veneto gives you Soave among the whites and Valpolicella and its powerful cousin Amarone among the reds. Any of them suit the seafood and the liver better than you would expect.

What It Costs and How to Plan

A guided food tour runs roughly 80 to 130 euros a person for three hours and several stops, with the cicchetti and a few drinks included. Done yourself, a cicchetti crawl is cheap, a couple of euros a snack and a few for an ombra or a spritz.

Factor in the vaporetto. The water buses are pricey by the single ride, so a multi day pass pays off if you are moving around the lagoon.

Come hungry and wear shoes for walking. You will cover real distance over bridges and through alleys, and getting a little lost is part of the city, not a problem to solve.

Watch two things on any bill. Confirm the price of fish sold by weight before you order it, and expect a coperto, the per person cover charge, which is normal here and not a scam.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the food in Venice actually any good?

Yes, if you know where to eat. The tourist restaurants near San Marco deserve their bad rumors, but the bàcari serving cicchetti are some of the best cheap eating in Italy.

That gap is the whole reason a food tour pays off here. It walks you past the traps and into the good bars.

What is a cicchetti crawl?

It is the Venetian way to eat and drink, called a giro di ombre. You move from one bàcaro to the next, having a cicchetto, a small snack, and an ombra, a small glass of wine, at each stop.

It is social, cheap, and done standing up. A guided version simply strings together the best bars and explains what you are eating.

How do I avoid the tourist trap restaurants?

Stay away from anywhere with a photo menu, a host waving you in, or a prime view of San Marco or the Rialto bridge. Those three signs almost guarantee frozen food at a markup.

Walk a few alleys inland and look for small places full of locals. Better still, take a tour on your first night and learn the difference.

When is the best time to go?

Spring and fall, for the weather, the moeche, and the lighter crowds. April to June and September to October are the comfortable windows.

Avoid the peak summer heat and crowds if you can. In late autumn and winter, watch for acqua alta flooding and pack boots.

Will we cook or eat on a food tour?

You eat. A Venice food tour is a guided cicchetti crawl through bars and the market, not a cooking class.

If you want to cook Venetian food, book a class instead. Plenty of visitors do one of each on a longer trip.

Is it worth it if I do not drink alcohol?

Mostly yes, though you lose part of the ritual. The cicchetti and the market are the real draw, and a good guide will keep you fed and happy with water or a soft drink.

Tell the company when you book. The food carries the tour even when the wine does not.

Katarina Jelks

Katarina Jelks is a professionally trained sommelier from Hawaii. She received her Wine & Management Diploma from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. Her experience working across the wine industry, in locations all around the world (France, Australia, New Zealand, the US & more), has resulted in a global perspective. She loves sharing her passion with others and helping them to chase their thirst for interesting wine and great food.