Three iconic historic Venice cafés, still operating today, vie for the title of the most beloved café in Piazza San Marco, each accompanied by its own orchestra. Here is their story, along with recommendations on what to eat and drink. The historic cafés of Venice represent a significant part of the city's cultural heritage, known well beyond its borders. Like other cities—including Turin and Trieste—Venice has cultivated charming urban spaces where locals and tourists can gather to chat and connect over a cup of coffee, a hot chocolate, or a slice of tiramisu. This delightful dessert, popular throughout Veneto and Friuli-Venezia Giulia, is also a staple in every Venetian trattoria.
Piazza San Marco is home to the most famous cafés, where orchestras from Lavena, Florian, and Quadri perform daily during summer. These musicians play a mix of romances, classical pieces, and period music, entertaining both terrace guests and tourists admiring the Basilica. The cafés blend charm with history, adorned with mirrors, chandeliers, and glass objects from local artisans. One of the most beautiful piazzas in the world - Piazza San Marco and being part of the immense history of the cafés, even if just for a coffee, is a once in a lifetime experience.
Caffè Florian
Opened on December 29, 1720 by Floriano Francesconi, Caffè Florian is considered, to this day, the oldest Italian café still open in Italy. It opened with the name of “Alla Venezia Trionfante” but soon the habit of calling the address under the porticoes of the Procuratie Nuove starting from the nickname of its owner, Florian, spread. The internal rooms are still the result of the nineteenth-century renovation, entrusted to the architect Lodovico Cadorin of the Academy of Fine Arts. From here, rooms with different motifs were created: the Chinese room, the Seasons room, the Senate room, the Liberty room, the Illustrious Men room. Each with its own particularities. There is also an outdoor terrace where you can listen to music and admire the Basilica of San Marco.
Given the fame of the place in the world, there is also a small corner inside dedicated to the sale of its historical merchandise, as well as online. Not only chocolate, tea or coffee but also glasses for hot chocolate or coffee, bearing the lion in moeca, a Venetian symbol with the lion of the Serenissima with wings. On the menu you'll find sandwiches, pharaonic breakfasts (like the Casanova), immense and sumptuous ice cream cups, small dishes for lunch, biscuits and single-portion desserts. Tea, infusions and cocktails. You can come for breakfast, brunch or even afternoon tea. Florian also has two locations in Taiwan, where it has exported its brand. It is still very common to go to Florian during Carnival with the most eccentric masks.
The Casanova Breakfast consists of: Coffee or cappuccino or caffelatte or tea, fresh orange juice or fruit juice, seasonal fresh fruit salad,croissant, toasted white bread, butter, jam or honey, dark chocolate cake, small sandwiches with ham and cheese. The signature Cake is the Florian Sunrise: White chocolate mousse, Sicilian candied orange paste,orange jelly, crunchy pistachios. The Florian Menu is extensive and includes tramezzini and salads. A must have is the Coppa Caffè Florian: Coffee, vanilla and chocolate ice creamwith Florian coffee liqueur, chocolate sauce and whipped cream.
Caffè Lavena
Opened in 1750, Caffè Lavena is the one most frequented by Venetians, who still go there for a coffee or a drink at the counter. The Caffe owes its name and fame to Carlo Lavena, an entrepreneur from Turin, who took over the business in 1860. The café consists of a single room, with a counter, surrounding seating and a loggia with more seating. Like other historic cafés (not just the Venetian ones), it can boast a historic clientele made up of very illustrious figures, but it is precisely to one of them that it has decided to pay special honors. Wagner was in fact a regular visitor to the upper loggia, where he sat with his wife Cosima, his daughters and his father-in-law and composer Franz Liszt, ordering tea and pastries or a glass of cognac. Its table and chairs have been preserved to this day.
The strong point of the Lavena menu is, as with other cafés, the offer of coffee-based drinks, whether they are cold or hot, alcoholic or not. In fact, we have a list of coffee-based cocktails, or special and delicious coffees, such as the Babà coffee with rum, sponge cake, whipped cream or the Cherí Cherí coffee with cherry brandy, black cherries, whipped cream. There is also no shortage of international coffee-based drinks, with recipes from all over the world. They are joined by wines, champagne, a list of desserts, including the Lavena pastry- the Fagottino Lavena - filled with almonds and honey, a small menu of savory snacks, such as the , ice creams and then a very long offer of cocktails, including classics, signature of the house, international cocktails, tiki cocktails, champagne cocktails and long drinks. Signature cocktails include the Venetian Roots: vodka, Select, rhubarb angostura, cedar water; or the Gigoló: gin, bitter, sugar or the Italo Americano: bitter, red vermouth, sugar espresso, gin or the Ombra del Doge: Select Liquor, red vermouth, Cynar, angostura, cocoa zest, cinnamon, salt. Among the bars present in Venice; the Lavena Caffe is the one with the most daring cocktail offering.
Gran Caffè Quadri
The most “evolved” of the historic Venetian cafés is certainly the Gran Caffè Quadri. Evolved because it was recently taken over by an important family of Venetian restaurateurs and chefs, the Alajmos (who have restaurants in various parts of Italy and the world), renovated thanks to the design star like Philippe Stark. Among these cafés, the Quadri is the only one to have a proper restaurant and not just a simple bar with pastries and snacks. The history of the place, located under the porticoes of the Procuratie Vecchie, practically in a mirror image of the Florian, begins in 1638 with a different appearance. It was called Rimedio and sold Malvasia wine, which was particularly popular in Venice.
The turning point came in 1775, when Giorgio Quadri and his wife Naxina arrived from Corfu to transform this wine shop into the Gran Caffè Quadri. In 1830, the Vaerini brothers took over, adding the restaurant on the upper floor. The Alajmo family took over in 2011, then reopened the café post-restoration in 2018, in its current guise. There are the rooms on the ground floor with the antique tables that recall the bistro, the Quadrino. Then the outdoor terrace, the small lounge of the bar (where you can also consume at the counter), which form the backbone of the Gran Caffè Quadri, and finally the upper floor with the old rooms of the Procurators of the Serenissima which house the Quadri Restaurant and the kitchen entrusted to chefs Salvo Giavedoni and Sergio Preziosi. In 2025, the Gran Caffè Quadri celebrates 250 years of history, with a whole program of events.
At the Quadri Bistrot you have a choice of delicate Quadri savoury cicchetti – which can be shared. For example, the MEAT CICCHETTI FISH CICCHETTI options are: Venetian focaccina with beef tartare and curry sauce; Chicken in saor with fried polenta; Veal meatballs with sweet pepper sauce; Raw sea bass with lemon and green peppercorns; Whipped salt cod with Alajmo Baeri Imperial caviar; Sea snails with butter and herbs au gratin or Imperial Caviar with crispy focaccias and pink vegan sour cream. Or choose from typical Venetian Pasta dishes such as Spaghetti alle vongole e salicornia or Ravioli di piselli con ragù di seppie al nero or Fettuccine al burro e caviale Baeri Imperial Alajmo.
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