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A bowl of pasta in the middle of the day will put me right to sleep. But Venetian cicchetti are perfect midday meals. They come in an almost endless variety and usually go for about a €uro.

A pearl onion, an anchovy and a pepper stuck together with a toothpick and ready to pop in your mouth. Small open-faced sandwiches: baccala mantecato, a whipped salted codfish; sarde in saor, fried sardines marinated in a sweet and sour sauce with onions. Artichokes, baby octopus, cheese, salami and more. And you can wash it all down with some local plonk - a glass of Verduzzo or a Prosecco. I get hungry just looking at them.