Autumn, in Venice, is the Venetians' season. From mid-September the city slowly empties, the light shifts, the air thickens and the first mists rise from the canals at dawn. It is the moment when, in the kitchen, we truly put away the summer menu and open the winter pantry: pumpkin from the Po Delta, late-harvest Treviso radicchio — the October–November one, not the winter type — chestnuts, porcini from the Cansiglio forests, lagoon eel. And most of all, the moeche return for the second harvest of the year, the autumn one, arguably more delicate than the spring one.
One autumn dish we have always made is pumpkin and scallop risotto. The pumpkin — the Delta one, very sweet and dry, not the big Halloween pumpkins — is roasted with a few sage leaves, then blended only halfway, so whole pieces remain in the risotto. The scallops arrive raw, cut into small chunks, and are added only after the heat is off, a moment before mantecatura. The contrast between the creamy sweetness of the pumpkin and the marine savour of the scallops is Venetian autumn on a plate: lagoon and land together.
Late-harvest Treviso radicchio is autumn's other great Veneto star. We cook it three ways: grilled, cut in half and lightly oiled, served with shavings of 24-month Grana Padano; in risotto, deglazed with a Merlot from Colli Berici; or raw, in a small salad with Piedmont walnuts and an apple-cider-vinegar dressing. It is a bitter, crunchy vegetable, the exact opposite of the delicacy of lagoon fish: precisely for that reason it works as a balance in an autumn menu that on its own tends toward sweetness.
One last thought: autumn in Venice also has the quiet charm of acqua alta. Do not be scared — most of the time it is a few centimetres, the length of a walkway and a coffee, and it passes. When it arrives, usually between October and November, the city grows more beautiful, tourists thin out further, palazzi reflections multiply. Here on the Riva del Vin the terrace remains accessible — we sit above canal level — and the windows overlook a Venice that seems to float twice. It is the perfect moment to book an indoor table with the lagoon view and ask for a plate of baccalà mantecato.
