Bar all'Arco is a few square metres of counter in San Polo, a minute from the Rialto market, and it is one of the two or three names every serious Venetian gives when asked where to eat cicchetti. Francesco Pinto took over the bacaro in 1996; his son Matteo works beside him as the fourth generation of Pintos to feed the market crowd. There is no executive-chef title here because the two of them are the kitchen, building the day's small plates by hand from whatever the Rialto stalls delivered that morning.
The dishes to ask for by name: baccala mantecato, whipped salt cod on a round of crisp bread; sarde in saor, sardines in a sweet-sour onion marinade that is the city's defining cicchetto; porchetta with mushrooms; and a raw mantis-shrimp crudo when the catch is right. Each cicchetto runs roughly euro1.50 to euro4, and an ombra, the small glass of wine that times a Venetian morning, costs about the same. It is the best money-to-pleasure ratio in the city, and it rewards timing more than spending.
The menu changes daily and is never written down in full. You point, you eat standing, you order another.
The counter sits at San Polo 436 on Calle dell'Arco, in the tangle of alleys behind the Rialto fish market. There are almost no seats; you stand at the bar or spill into the calle with a plate and a glass. By eleven the trays are full and the market porters are on their second ombra; by two in the afternoon the counter is picked clean and the shutters come down. It is bright, fast, loud with Venetian, and entirely without ceremony. No reservations, no dress code, cash and card both fine.
Go to Bar all'Arco alone, and it becomes one of the great solo positions in Venice. Standing at a cicchetti counter is built for one: you build your own idiosyncratic run through the trays, talk to Francesco or Matteo about what is freshest, and time your ombre to the rhythm of the market without negotiating with anyone. Arrive at opening, eat four or five cicchetti at the bar, and you have had the most Venetian hour in the city for under twenty euro.
Not for
Skip it for a sit-down dinner. There are almost no seats, no reservations, and by two in the afternoon the cicchetti trays are picked clean and the shutters are closing for the day.
