Wandering around Verona: let’s discover Veronetta!

A couple of years ago I wrote an article on Veronetta (if you missed it you can read it here) and now I’d like to tell you what’s new in this Veronese district.

Veronetta has always been different from the rest of the city. The very name comes from French “Veronette”, meaning “little Verona”. In fact, in 19th century the district was under the rule of Austrians and Napoleon’s troops gave it this derogatory name.
Nowadays, Veronetta is one of the quirkiest districts in Verona. Strolling around the streets you can immediately perceive the different atmosphere.
Year after year, the streets bloom with alternative pubs and restaurants of bohemian style, among stunning historic buildings with an ancient and magnificent look.
There you can meet a melting pot of people from different places as well as creative minds: old artisans still carrying on their activity, university students, district residents or foreign tourists.

A lot of Bed & Breakfasts as well as a hostel, a very elegant inn and many apartments opened recently. Many young artists come here to work and it’s easy to find artisan studios, art galleries exhibiting photos or pieces of design and modern art.
It’s worth to visit this district, at only a few minutes from the city centre, and to spend an alternative night out here.

And now I pick up our favourite topic: where to eat and drink in Veronetta?
We decided to recommend you some pubs where you can have an aperitivo drinking and munching something (in some cases you can just have dinner if you prefer). All places are recent and started by really smart young guys.

The first pub throws into the Venice lagoon in just an instant! Right in the centre of Veronetta you can have a good Venetian-style aperitivo by tasting a cicchetto (“fish shot”) according to the Venetian tradition, a mixed fry or sardine in saor (“marinated pilchards”), accompanied with a spritz or an ombra de vin (“a glass of wine”), at Al Bacaro, opened by young boys (Michele “the restaurateur”, Andrea “the architect” and Roberto “the former banker”) in June 2017.

The environment is stylish but relaxed, evokes Venice but is never trivial, the cicchetti are excellent, very similar to the original ones and jazz concerts are often organized in the cozy room downstairs. They will soon resume with their jazz brunches, which we have not yet tried but that we absolutely don’t want to miss. Compared to the opening, they have adjusted the food offer: on the one hand, the cicchetti to be ordered at the counter are now all at a fixed price, on the other hand, it is possible to order them tableside in the gourmet version, in a slightly larger portion, or you can order mini-portions of the most famous Venetian dishes on the menu, such as spaghetti alla busa, and go into a real Venetian tapas tasting. Also know that they have expanded their range of dishes even to those who are not fish lovers.

We also recommend that you go to Lo Speziale. This place is set in an ancient house from the early Twentieth century, still painted and finely furnished with beautiful vintage and pop pieces of furniture.
It was born a couple of years ago from the idea of Ilaria and Roberto, who decided to create a space for sharing and experience. At Speziale you feel at home—a truly beautiful home!

Quality, seasonal and preferably zero km raw materials combine with the many spices and herbs characteristic of the cuisine of Lo Speziale. The recipes proposed vary from Italian regional cuisine, recovering traditional flavours and ingredients, to the tastes captured by travelling around the world and reproduced following classic preparations or adding a touch of veronesità.

Lo Speziale is not just about cooking: it’s a place of cultural aggregation as well, with contemporary art and craft exhibitions, brunches with the authors, classes of ceramics and more, cultural aperitivi with musical entertainment.

In the Veronetta area close to Ponte Navi, it recently opened a very small and cozy place, Ancestrale “birra e mare“, the right place to drink great craft beers from all over the world, selected by the innkeeper Maurizio, and sip them accompanied by fish street food, ranging from fish skewers to soups up to the fabulous cuzzetiello (a sandwich made with flour type 2 stone and sourdough, to which the crumb is removed, filled with fish-based ingredients). The cuzzetiello can be served in its variants with, for example, polipetti (octopuses) and basil, monkfish and peppers or creamed cod and courgettes. All ingredients are selected by the excellent chef of the Officina dei Sapori, Fabio.

Finally, Veronetta is becoming the golden triangle of cocktail bars. After the opening of Soda Jerk, mentioned in the last post, two other exceptional pubs are making their way into mixology made in Verona.

The first one, right in Piazza Isolo is Grande Giove, a very small bar but furnished with great taste and creativity, which will amaze you with extremely refined and always new cocktails. In fact, the menu changes often and is highly sophisticated.

The second place we recommend is the brand new La Segreteria Café. With a retro taste from the Forties, the restaurant has been furnished as it were an office, characterizing every detail and paying great attention to reuse. The couple that manages this place immediately strikes for their enthusiasm: he, the bartender magician, is able to understand what you’d like to drink at a glance; she is very kind and attentive to customer requests.

The surprises are not over: proactive Ilaria of bar Speziale, with the collaboration of Salmon Magazine and some friends including Adriano Mercurio, have decided to make the lives of tourists easy, creating a beautiful map that summarizes everything that you can do, see, experience and visit in Veronetta.
You should know that the neighborhood is so abuzz that it is difficult to be updated on all the new openings, but the number of craft shops, clubs, bars, artistic showrooms, cultural associations on the map is so wide that you would need at least a week to see them all!

Down here you can find the Salmon Magazine link to download the useful map, of which you can see a preview at the bottom of the post.
Download PDF Map
What are you waiting for? Arm yourself with the map, follow our advice and come to Veronetta!
This link describes every activity in detail: http://www.salmonmagazine.com/follow-mercutio/

verona, verona, veronetta