Spritz, sights and bites: here's how to eat and drink your way through Venice

My Venetian dinner date has more than a whiff of Cassanova romance. We meet by the Basilica dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo as the late afternoon sun sets the church's gothic facade ablaze. Nicola Berton is a young bespectacled university graduate with a degree in medieval art. He's also my guide on a 3.5-hour Do Eat Better walking tour of Venice's bacari (small wine bars).

It's a boozy affair that begins with Aperol spritz and ends with gelato on a tour of five venues across three districts. We start in Cannaregio at Cibo & Vino, where we sit between walls stacked with wine, while staff slice prosciutto and mozzarella. The first drinks are poured, and we learn there's more than one way to spritz. With Aperol, the traditional bitter liqueur, Campari (more bitter), Cynar (earthy) or Select (less sweet).

Our aperitivo comes with a tasting board of cicchetti (Venetian tapas). Think cod balls, ham and cheese cuttlefish-pastry parcels, and bread topped with tomato and ricotta. At laneway bolthole Momoleto, we choose from 14 different cicchetti, as Nicola explains how the carb-heavy morsels soak up the alcohol. "There is a stereotype in northern Italy that we drink a lot," he says. "To balance the alcohol we eat the cicchetti."