Cipriani - A Venetian Legacy

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Cipriani
A Venetian Legacy
By Ginda Simpson
View from Locanda restaurant
CIPRIANI. Much more than a sequence of letters, the name Cipriani
represents many things: hard work, a dream, more work, boundless
courage and craft, more work – in the end, an unparalleled tradition of
excellence in hospitality and cuisine of international acclaim.
Giuseppe Cipriani was born into a poor family in 1900 in Verona.
When Giuseppe was four years old, his father immigrated to Germany
to work as a bricklayer, while his mother cooked for the Italian workers
who shared the house they rented. At the outbreak of the First World War,
the Cipriani family returned to their native city and young Giuseppe, age
14, found work as an apprentice at the famous Molinari pastry kitchen.
Ever restless, four years later, he began to move from job to job waiting
tables at various hotels in Italy and beyond, discovering in the process
his love of people and that serving others came naturally to him. He Cip’s
eventually landed in Venice. It was the owner of the Hotel Europa
that convinced Giuseppe to be the hotel’s barman, a job for which
he was well suited. Over the years, Giuseppe fantasized about
opening a fashionable bar of his own, but the lack of funds kept
him from realizing this dream. Little did he know that the loan of
10,000 lire to a struggling American and bar patron named Harry
Pickering would pay back such dividends. Two years later, Harry
reappeared in Venice to make good on the loan, giving Giuseppe
an additional 30,000 lire, enough money for the barman to open
Giudecca
a place of his own, naming it Harry’s Bar. The year was 1931.
Giuseppe rented an old warehouse located at the end of a blind
alley. He transformed it into the stylish bar of his dreams and it did
not take long for the European aristocrats to find their way to its
now elegant interior. Many refined and famous clientele have sipped
aperitifs at Harry’s Bar, most notably Ernest Hemingway. It was in
1943 at Harry’s Bar that Giuseppe created the famed champagne
cocktail, known as a Bellini, in honor of the painter Giovanni Bellini.
Made with fresh pureed white peaches and Prosecco – and sometimes
a bit of raspberry or cherry juice to give the drink a rosy glow – it
remains today one of Cipriani’s most requested aperitifs. The classic
Bellini is served only in the summer months, when white peaches
are available. Another Cipriani specialty is Carpaccio, named by
Giuseppe after the Venetian painter, Vittore Carpaccio, and first
served to the Countess Amalia Nani Mocenigo in 1950, when she
Hotel Cipriani
informed Giuseppe that her doctor recommended
that she consume only uncooked meat. Giuseppe,
always eager to please his clients, created a dish
of paper-thin slices of raw beef served with a
freshly made mustard-mayonnaise sauce. Its
popularity has since travelled all over the world.
In 1934, always the visionary, Giuseppe took
on a new challenge – he bought an unpretentious
wine and oil shop on the little known island
of Torcello in the Venetian lagoon. Here he
opened a small inn. Locanda Cipriani met with
immediate success, recognized and appreciated
for its warmly rustic character and its simple,
soul-satisfying views. Two decades later, with
the help of Guiness brewery owner Lord Iveagh, View from Cip’s Club
Cipriani undertook his most ambitious project,
purchasing acreage on the island of Giudecca,
directly across the canal from St. Mark’s Square, where he built the Hotel Cipriani. This was
followed by the construction of Villa Cipriani in Asolo.
Towards the end of his long and passionate career as hotelier and restaurateur, he sold his
interest in the two hotels and devoted his time to Harry’s Bar and Locanda Cipriani, both
enterprises later carried forward by his children and today by his grandchildren. The hotel
on Giudecca, now part of the Orient Express chain of luxury hotels, still carries the Cipriani
name, remaining faithful to the tradition of excellence that the Cipriani trademark represents.
I have come to Venice to stitch together two of my own long-held fantasies – to experience
Locanda Cipriani
Umbrellas
Glassblower
the rich legacy of Giuseppe Cipriani with a stay at the Hotel Cipriani
in Venice, followed by a brief sojourn at the Locanda Cipriani in
Torcello. It is mid-June, but my straw hat at the moment does not
shield me from the sun, but rather from a light drizzle. No matter.
We don’t linger long after our arrival at Hotel Cipriani. Venice, La
Serenissima, in a gray mist, moody and mysterious, is beckoning us
to cross her grandiose canal.
We take the hotel’s private launch to the quayside of San Marco
and join the shiftless thousands of people and pigeons that amass
in the grand Piazza. In the frenzied crowd of tourists, I feel restless
and am easily carried along with the masses on the move towards
the Rialto, pulled by the shimmering allure of shop windows.
More than a thousand years ago, Venice became great as a market
city and although perhaps a less noble market today, the Venetian
tourist trade is thriving. From gaudy trinkets to delicate lace, to fine
leather, to elegant jewelry, there is something for every taste and budget.
Murano glass dominates the market, its translucent colours shimmering
on shelves in storefront windows. It is a market being inundated with
inferior imitation glassware, produced in China, so shoppers must be
cautious in making their selections.
To state the obvious, real Murano glass is only made on the island of
Murano, in the Venetian lagoon, where this art first appeared in the eighth
century. Murano glass, known for its extraordinary beauty and delicacy,
has been prized for more than a millennium. In 1291, all the glassmakers
in Venice were forced to move their furnaces to the island of Murano,
out of fear for fire in a city whose buildings were primarily made
of wood. For centuries, Murano was the major producer of glass
in Europe, holding top position for their excellence in developing
and refining techniques that included crystalline glass, enameled
glass, glass with threads of gold and the famous multi-colored glass
known as millefiori, a thousand flowers. Glassmaking remains the
island’s main industry and artisans today still employ centuries-old
techniques, whether crafting contemporary art glass and jewellery or
more traditional chandeliers, vases and sculptures. Visits to the glass
foundries are possible and a trip to the island of Murano is easily
undertaken by vaporetto, waterbuses that leave Venice on a regular
basis.
The drizzle lets up about the time we are ready to return to our
hotel. Once there, I wander through the hotel garden, lost in a world
far from the maddening crowds I so recently left behind. The lawn
smells freshly of the afternoon rain, perfumed by jasmine and aromatic herbs. Brilliant hydrangea,
in every shade of pink and purple, are weighted down with moisture, dripping crystal tears on a
green velvet lawn. A white stone maiden sits on the edge of a lily pond. Does she listen, like me,
to the trill of crickets and frogs, to the sweet song of a solitary bird? A soft light falls across a
patchwork of green in an herb garden that delights the eye and provides the hotel chef with an
abundance of flavours – flavours we are about to relish for ourselves.
The inclement weather prohibits us from dining outdoors on the terrace of the Fortuny Restaurant,
but indoor dining is not without its pleasures. From its elegant interior we have a pleasing view
of the lagoon and of the little islet of San Giorgio Maggiore, crowned by Palladio’s magnificent
church. Chef Renato Piccolotto’s recipes pay homage to the city of Venice, half land – half sea.
Using ingredients brought in daily from its waters or gathered from its fields, his is a cuisine that
invites one to dine with the rhythm of the seasons. Cipriani’s classic Carpaccio is a fine prelude
to a spectacular meal: Tortelli stuffed with scallops, sea bass baked in salt, grilled scampi and a
frittura of delectable shrimp and calamari. How did we ever find room for the chef’s version of
Tiramisù, prepared in its own chocolate cup and topped with a slivered chocolate silhouette of a
gondola! Thank you, Venice! Thank you, Renato!
Our room overlooks the garden and the lagoon, but we hardly give these views any thought this
evening. We succumb quickly to the plush comfort and serene colors of our room’s décor and to
the silence that engulfs us, and dream of Venezia. In the morning, Murano…
It seems only right that we should visit this glass-maker’s island and view for ourselves the
masters at work, blowing, shaping, cutting, creating works of art, as if by magic, right in front of
our eyes. The artist in me will not be swayed by anything other than authentic Murano glass, so
I am happy to go directly to the source and choose, one by one, beads of
exquisite beauty and quality for my jewellery-making. I pay a princely
sum for my selections, but I am deeply satisfied.
A parade of umbrellas still colours the footpaths of both Murano and
Venice proper, nudging us to return to the refuge of our room for a siesta,
before exploring our own neighborhood of Giudecca. Later, we are
pleased to see that we can leave our umbrellas behind as sunlight pierces
through the narrow alleyways and skips across the waterways. It is as if the
buildings, boats and even the air itself have been scrubbed and polished
to a crystalline luster. We wander with no destination in mind, led from
one pretty scene to another, whether it is a pot of brilliant geraniums, or
pigeons perching on the rose-glassed iron lanterns along the canal. The
sunshine glints on the dome of a church across the way while its rays
light up the façade of an ancient palace. Time stands still, yet moments
collide and before we know it, we are ready to enjoy an aperativo. Tables
have been set at Cip’s Club, the popular Cipriani quayside restaurant that Murano glass jewelry
now enjoys the lingering warmth of a setting sun. As I sip a Bellini and
Mike a Prosecco, we gaze at a scene that seems more like a Canaletto painting, the water a deeper shade of the
sky, perfectly framing St. Mark’s and the Doges Palace against a backdrop of cotton-candy clouds. The sounds
of Venice create their unique melody – the slow hum of a tugboat, the muffled drone of distant boat motors,
the toot-toot of boat horns and the lapping of waves against the dockside pavement. In the dazzle of this light,
the facades and domes and bell towers simply glow, reminding me of the silver and gold foil glass beads I so
carefully handled this morning. A silver white sun scatters a path of liquid diamonds across the lagoon. The bells
of the nearby San Giorgio campanile chime rhythmically. In the morning, from the northern end of the lagoon,
Torcello calls…
Considered the oldest continuously populated region of Venice, with archeological finds suggesting its
occupation by the Romans as early as the first century AD, Torcello is a sparsely populated island today, with
less than 100 residents. After the downfall of the Roman Empire, Torcello was the first island to be populated by
those who fled the mainland to escape repeated barbarian invasions, soon becoming the most largely populated
(10,000 people) island in the lagoon and one of the most important trading centres of the Venetian Republic.
Torcello reached its peak around the 14th century, then began to decline as the island gradually became a malarial
swamp, forcing its populace to abandon the island, leaving behind splendid palace and church architecture,
much of which simply disappeared into the swamp or was pilfered for its building materials.
Two relics of this era remain and attract many visitors: the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta, founded in
the seventh century houses immensely beautiful 11th and 12th century Byzantine mosaics and the 12th century
Church of Santa Fosca, surrounded by an arched portico. Its spare stone and brick interior invites one to pause
and pray.
Another attraction on this quiet, unspoiled island is, of course, the vividly painted inn and restaurant, Locanda
Cipriani, a short walk from the ferry landing along a lovely bricked pathway that follows the curve of the main
canal, flanked on either side by green fields. Immersed in a sumptuous garden, with a view of Torcello’s two
churches and the bell tower, the inn was a favorite refuge for Ernest Hemingway in 1948, as he wrote parts of
Across the River and Into the Trees. Giuseppe’s grandson, Bonifacio Brass, is the current owner and he adheres
to the vision that his grandfather had for the Locanda, keeping in its six rooms, simple yet elegant, a décor that
reflects an ease of country style hospitality and warmth, a place where each guest is made to feel comfortably
at home.
One need not stay the night to enjoy what the Locanda is best known for, and that is its restaurant, open for
lunch and dinner. Tables spill out of the inn’s dining room to a sun-filled patio, enveloped in a garden of roses
and pomegranates, lavender and climbing jasmine, trumpet vines and hydrangeas – a veritable haven. The food,
the fish, the vegetables are local and intensely fresh. The recipes are creative, yet uncomplicated, and utterly
divine. No wonder Hemingway stayed for months at a time, and visitors return year after year. I am so pleased
that I have been their guest as well. Yes, the legacy of Giuseppe Cipriani endures.
WHERE TO STAY:
Hotel Cipriani
Giudecca, 10
30133 Venice
Tel: 39-041-240-8005
Restaurants:
Fortuny Restaurant
Cip’s Club
www.hotelcipriani.com
Locanda Cipriani
Piazza S. Fosca, 29
30142 Torcello – Venice
Tel: 39-041-730-150
Restaurant
[email protected]
www.locandacipriani.com
WHERE TO BUY MURANO
GLASS:
Artistic Murano Glass
San Marco 5115
30124 Venice
Tel: 39-041-523-2313
www.artglass.it
[email protected]