Notes on chocolate: a glorious gelato in touristy Venice

I am in Venice. It is a-throng with slow moving, selfie-stick-touting tourists, less intent on sightseeing than on seeing themselves in the sights. Where are the shops where normal people shop for pans and cloths? There are lots selling glass or beautiful handmade paper. But normal, everyday stuff? Not so much. I read that the resident population on the island is a fifth of what it was in the 1950s. The first woman in the world to graduate from university was born here.

I struggle in crowds, so I go searching for peace and quiet. The Peggy Guggenheim affords a relatively peaceful and breezy terrace on which to canal-watch, just a shuffle away from Marini’s very happy man on a horse: the Angel of the City. The gift shop (I love me a gift shop) has no chocolate, but a Mondrian Miffy.

Still no chocolate to be had, but early one morning after going on the Rialto Bridge (one has to), we stumble across a Venchi. There are Venchi shops worldwide, but since all the other gelato shops seen have neon coloured ice-cream (no pistachio should be bright green), we buy some here, even though it’s barely beyond breakfast. I opt for nougatine – a dark, 77% chocolate with caramelised Piedmont hazelnuts atop.

We walk a little way to get away from all the crowds along tiny streets with washing sailing overhead. Chocolate ice-cream always disappoints. But this one – right under my nose the whole time in England – doesn’t. It is superb. Dark, robust, not powdery but rich and creamy and absolutely the best chocolate gelato (aside from my dad’s) I’ve ever tasted (from £5 in the UK).

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