Author Q&A - Tess Woods

Meet Perth-based Author Tess Woods, and grab her Venice address book for future adventures!

Hello from Sophie, from Venice! I am writing to you (and simultaneously pinching myself) from this magical city that feels like a movie set and delivers delight at every turn.

The Venice Hotel was part of my ‘research’ for this current trip to Italy, and I loved it so much I asked its Perth-based author Tess Woods to join us here for a Something to Eat and Something to Read Q&A.

Her earlier book, Beautiful Messy Love is another of my favourites, so I’m thrilled she agreed to tell us what she’s reading and eating at the moment. And share some of her Venice tips for me/us to benefit from.

I love how Tess writes love stories that are sexy and fun but also take on, headfirst, big issues of climate change, culture wars and domestic violence.

Meet Tess, and I hope you also enjoy her Venice tips, presented here with a few photos from today’s explorations.

Sophie x

What was the last book that you read and LOVED! And why?

I adored You are Here by David Nicholls, the author of One Day. It’s such a simple story, told in the most masterful way. The premise is two strangers, both at a crossroads in life and hurting from past relationships, go as part of a group on a walking trip across the Lake District in the UK. It’s a sweet, smart and funny love story that really pulled at my heartstrings, and I think David Nicholls can do wrong.

What was the last meal you paid for or made and LOVED? And why?

I was in Melbourne recently and visited a restaurant I’d been to before called Meso Bites. It’s a tiny, hole-in-the-wall establishment on Degraves Street, which is my most favourite Melbourne street (you could be in Europe with its vibe). Meso Bites is an Iraqi restaurant, and the share plates of Arabic food are divine – warm bread, tasty dips, fresh salads, stuffed vine leaves, and delicious falafel. We last went there on Easter Sunday for a late dinner, and it was a one-man show – the same gentleman was waiting on tables and cooking and serving all the food from the kitchen that you can look into. He was extraordinary. The restaurant only fits 15 people maximum, the décor is funky, and the mixed meat platter – my God, so good!

What’s your go-to comfort read?

Anything by Maeve Binchy, my all-time favourite author. Her easy-to-read, character-driven stories, to me, are the equivalent of running a warm bubble bath and soaking in it with a cuppa. Bliss!

What’s your go-to comfort food?

Molokheya. There’s no problem too big that a steaming hot bowl of Egyptian green leaf soup served with enough garlic to sink a ship and shredded chicken and rice can’t fix.

A cookbook you are cooking out of at the moment?

My son bought me The 5-minute salad lunch box by Alexander Hart for Christmas, and I’ve made a new salad every week since. It’s revolutionised my lunches, which used to be cheese on crackers or a packet of crisps (on a good day). Although I have to say, Alexander is telling porkies, none of the recipes take me five minutes to make, some take over half an hour!

You get to invite four of your favourite writers over for dinner; who are they and what will you cook them?

Oh, four is tough! Ideally, I’d want that number to be 40 to fit all my favourites in!

But if it must be 4, I’ll go for my four lifelong favourite authors then:

1. Maeve Binchy

2. Melina Marchetta

3. Elizabeth Strout

4. Rosamund Pilcher

I’d replicate an Italian menu I cooked for Perth’s independent booksellers last year when I had them all in my gorgeous back garden for a long table lunch, featuring some of the food of The Venice Hotel. The food included homemade burnt butter and sage gnocchi, pizza, eggplant parmigiana, prawn salad, roasted marinated zucchini and mozzarella, tomato and basil salad. For dessert, lemon mousse, tiramisu and blueberry shortbread. Here’s a link to the video of that lunch :)

Tess Woods’ Venice Address book

These are my absolute favourite places that are right next to where Hotel Il Cuore is set – between the Grand Canal and the lagoon in San Marco.

My favourite place for morning tea is called Pasticceria Marchini Time. They have the most incredible range of Italian desserts, all on show in a shop-length display bar. If you order enough treats, which greedy us did every day, they pile them on a tray and wrap them for you in stunning printed paper like a gift with a ribbon.

For lunch on the go, because who wants to sit down for lunch? you can’t beat Happy Pizza. It’s a tiny place that’s always packed. The pizza slices are as big as your face and have freshest yummiest dough. It’s the most aptly named cafe, you can’t eat a Happy Pizza and not be happy!

For dinner, a cosy family run restaurant, Trattoria Vini da Arturo. The schnitzel-style pork chops are to die for! On the walls are framed photographs of all the Hollywood greats who have eaten there, which inspired Amal and George Clooney’s visit to Il Cuore :)

Real attractions from The Venice Hotel to visit on your next trip

• The church San Zaccaria, where all the drama unfolds when Loretta meets Flavia

• Hotel Danieli – the foyer is a must-see. Outside the hotel is the imagined crushed sculpture from the Venice Rising Exhibition.

• Giardini Reali – the garden where Loretta and Alberto sit.

• Scala Contarini del Bovolo – the snail-like staircase palazzo that Rocco takes Sophie to.

• Libreria Acqua Alta – the bookshop Rocco takes Sophie to. If you go nowhere else from the novel, please at least go here! You won’t regret it!

• The Jewish Ghetto in the Cannaregio District, where Mike and Gayle visited Elena’s mother.

• Sophie and Rocco visited the Rialto markets in San Polo.

• The Lido cinema, where Sophie and Rocco went on New Year’s Eve

• The Regatta della Befana is a real event held on January 6. If you time your visit between Christmas and the Epiphany, then you will also see the fireworks over the lagoon on New Year’s Eve. Be warned, though, we were actually caught in a crowd crush after midnight!

• Of course, there are all the unmissable sites, too—the Doge’s Palace, the violinists outside Florian in Piazza San Marco, the clock tower, the basilica, and the Ponte di Rialto connecting San Marco to San Polo, which all feature in the story.