Carnival in Venice is not just a spectacle of masks, costumes, and candlelit canals. It’s a season — one that slowly builds, day after day, until it reaches its joyful peak on Martedì Grasso, the final and most exuberant day of Carnival.
This year in 2026, Martedì Grasso falls on February 17, and as always, the city celebrates with music, laughter, and one unmistakable scent drifting through the calli (this is how we call the small streets in Venice): frying dough dusted with sugar.
That scent belongs to the fritola veneziana.
Round, golden, and generously coated in sugar, fritole are far more than a Carnival treat. They are one of Venice’s most beloved food traditions - a dessert that tells the story of the city, its people, and its appetite for celebration.
Fritola: A True Street Sweet
Unlike many Italian pastries born in convents or noble kitchens, the fritola veneziana has humble, popular origins.
Known in dialect as fritoe, these sweet fritters are made from a simple dough of flour, eggs, sugar, and raisins, fried in oil and served hot, finished with a generous snowfall of sugar.
What makes them special is not just their flavor, but where they come from.
Fritole were born as street food, sold warm from wooden stalls during Carnival, meant to be eaten standing up, fingers dusted in sugar, laughter in the air. Their name comes from the verb frìtolar - to fry - a reminder of their direct, uncomplicated nature.
Simple, yes. But deeply woven into Venetian life.
A Recipe with History
One of the oldest written records of fritole is preserved in the Biblioteca Casanatense in Rome. The ingredients listed are few and essential: eggs, flour, sugar, lemon zest, and raisins. The dough was mixed by hand, divided into small portions, fried, and rolled in sugar.
Over the centuries, the base recipe has remained almost unchanged. What evolved were the fillings.
Today, alongside the classic raisin fritole, Venetian bakeries offer versions filled with pastry cream, zabaione, chocolate, or pistachio - especially during Carnival season, when every historic pasticceria proudly displays its own interpretation.
Fritole officially entered Venetian history between the 16th and 17th centuries. In the 1600s, Venice established a corporation of fritoleri: around seventy licensed vendors authorized to prepare and sell fritole across the city.
These were not casual street sellers. Their trade was strictly regulated: each fritolero had an assigned area, and the recipe could only be passed down within the family. If no heirs were available the head of the guild, appointed a successor, subject to approval by the authorities.
Easily recognizable by their white aprons and theatrical gestures, fritoleri fried their fritole in large pans atop wooden stalls. Freshly cooked fritters were sugared using a distinctive perforated container, often with dramatic flair to attract customers.
By the 18th century, their popularity was so immense that fritole were officially proclaimed the National Dessert of the Venetian State, a rare honor for a humble street sweet.
A Carnival You Can Taste
Fritole are more than a dessert. They are the edible memory of Venice in Carnival time — noisy, joyful, generous, and fleeting.
They remind us that celebration doesn’t have to be elaborate. Sometimes, it’s just a warm fritter, a dusting of sugar, and the pleasure of eating it while the city dances around you.
