Caorle Fish Festival

A food festival with the great dishes of old Caorle tradition. The Upper Adriatic certainly gives the chefs of Caorle’s restaurants the chance to prepare dishes that satisfy even the most demanding palates.
The Fish Festival, held in town every year in the summer months, is part of this great culture of the sea. The festival has very old roots, linked to the history of Caorle and its most numerous workers, the fishermen. Before the tourism boom, fishing was the only source of livelihood here, and there were very hard, long periods. Sea fishing and lagoon fishing were certainly two different kinds of work and sacrifice.
Sea fishing is done every day, except during closed seasons. For lagoon fishing, still practised but in very different ways, the fishermen left their homes and, during the fraima, in the depths of winter, stayed away from their families for 3 months, the time needed to make a good catch. With exclusive fishing rights, the people of Caorle created a real industry, not unlike how we think of one today. From the sea and the lagoon to our tables, and above all to the tables of the Fish Festival.
When the old town hall still stood, the car park next to it in Via Roma, which no longer exists, was paved with stones. That was the place chosen for the festival, and Piazza Matteotti too, now completely transformed, was the favourite spot for those who wanted to taste the food and enjoy the smells and aromas in the centre. Those were certainly other times, and not for nothing was there a break, useful to renew the event.
So for some years now, with all the necessary permits, a different but more attractive location has been chosen, and whoever came up with the idea was brilliant. The Fish Festival is now held on the Sacheta, the beach of the Madonna dell’Angelo, in a truly spectacular setting, sometimes in the sultry summer heat, sometimes in a different climate.
At times a light, fresh sea breeze has greeted visitors, a natural air conditioner that keeps guests happy and lets them eat more and more fish, washed down with local wines. Scallops, queen scallops, razor clams, fish stews, baby octopus and much more, in a kaleidoscope of colours, aromas and warmth, both the summer weather and the affection of Caorle’s people.