Italian food is very regional—but food from Venice is one of our favorites. Seafood and pasta? Wine and pastries? Check, check and check!

Here, three dishes you just have to try while you're visiting Venice.

Sardee in saor

This antipasto sounds odd: It's sweet-and-sour sardines with onions, pine nuts and raisins. But even the name tells you it tastes delicious. The translation of "sardee in saor"w ould actually be "sardines immersed in flavor"! Onions show up often in Venetian cuisine because onions neutralize the bacteria that spoils food—something that Venetian sailors, spending such a long time at sea, would have been very familiar with!

Risi e bisi

Not quite a risotto, not quite a soup, this is a Venetian dish made of rice and peas (in Venetian dialect, "risi e bisi"). It's the dish that used to be offered to the Doge every St. Mark's Feast Day.

Risotto al nero di seppia

You see a lot of risotto in the north, and Venice is no exception. But here's the local twist: risotto drowned in black squid ink. You'll also see nero di seppia served in a variety of other ways, including on vermicelli (long, thin noodles) or served with squid itself.