“I’m always up for a challenge,” says Angela Hartnett cheerfully, both feet planted on the deck of a gleaming 12m (40ft) racing yacht gliding through Venice’s famous lagoon.

It’s just as well. Not only is Gordon Ramsay’s star chef the only woman to have interrupted the 105-year male lineage at London’s venerable Connaught Hotel, she has to cook for Britain in the tiny galley of the yacht as it races across the waves in the world’s most unusual regatta, the San Pellegrino Cooking Cup 2007. But her biggest challenge is to spill the beans on where to find good food in Venice.

La Serenissima, the city of opera-singing gondoliers and art-filled churches, shadowy bars and Bellini cocktails, has a somewhat shady reputation for food. Overpriced, overhyped and overcooked, cry its detractors, heading for foodie-friendly Bologna or fashionista Milano instead. Even the sensible Cadogan guide to Venice baldly concludes: “Venetians can’t cook.”

But Hartnett accepts the challenge with her usual good grace and common sense.

“I don’t think Venice is the rip-off that everyone claims it to be,” she says. “I never feel I’m being taken for a ride. Its just a matter of knowing where to look and what to look for.”

Hartnett has the one thing you need to eat well in Venice: a store of local knowledge from family members scattered from Bardi in Emilia Romagna to Venice itself. So, what should we be looking for and where? “This”, she says, later on as she takes a sip of a Friulian tocai (fruity white wine) and gestures to the juicy, grilled razor clams as long as her little finger on the table at the tiny Alle Testiere osteria near Santa Maria Formosa. “I wouldn’t eat in any of those restaurants near St Mark’s square, or anywhere with a menu turistica.”

Instead, she says, go to the Rialto market in the morning and check out the local seafood, as Venetians have been doing since the 11th century. “They have things there from the local waters that we never get back home. Then you can recognise them when you get to the restaurants, and be a bit more knowledgable.”

Hartnett says we should give ourselves over to the Italian way of doing things. “Don’t just sit there and have pizza that you can have at home,” she says. “Drink the local wine ( fragolino bianco), order the day’s specials. They’re not like specials in England, where the kitchen is trying to get rid of something. They’re real specials, straight from the market.”

She urges us to order the bigoli in saor, “a fabulous dish of fat tubular spaghetti with sweet, cooked-down onions and anchovies”, and the little soft-shelled crabs called moeche or moleche that come from the waters around the island of Murano.

Also on her must-eat list is a classic spaghetti alle vongole (a recipe for which, if you’re not planning a trip to Venice, is in her excellent cookbook Angela Hartnett’s Cucina, Three Generations of Italian Family Cooking, published by Ebury Press). And risotto, of course. “In Venice, they make it almost soupy. It should move like a wave when you tilt the plate,” she says. “And they do a lot of sweet and sour, originally as a method of preservation. I had a slice of aubergine marinated in vinegar that just melted in my mouth”.

Venetian food is distinctly seasonal, rustic and earthy, she explains. “But it can also be an incredibly elegant array of little antipasti snacks called cichetti, to have with a drink. They could be francobolli, tiny little white-bread sandwiches or tramezzini, stuffed with creamy baccala (salt cod) or gorgonzola with walnuts. You could just sit there all day, nibbling away.” The perfect spot, she says, is a bar such as Al Bancogiro beneath the porticos of the 16th-century Fabbriche Vecchie by the Rialto in Campo San Giacometto, with views over the Grand Canal.

Her biggest tip is to look around and have what the locals are having. “That’s how I discovered the perfect Venetian ombra (apéritif) of local white wine and Campari topped with soda.”

What about the famous Harry’s Bar, home of the Bellini cocktail and the 30-euro risotto? “I love the owner, Arrigo Cipriani. He makes you a part of the family,” she says. “But why go to Harry’s Bar and sit with 50 other tourists? I’d go for a Bellini, but there are better places to eat.”

As it turns out, Hartnett has a tough time putting together her entry of roasted John Dory with prawn tortellini, aubergine and pumpkin flowers for the San Pellegrino Cooking Cup. But in spite of the heat, lack of wind and restricted space in the galley combining to make her feel more than queasy, she wins top prize in the international category and covers Britain with glory.

As she says, after three days of sunshine, sailing and seafood in the world’s most beautiful city, there’s no way she could lose. Angela Hartnett at The Connaught (020-7592 1222, www.gordonramsay.com/theconnaught) reopens in November.

Top tables in Venice
Angela Hartnett’s suggestions (prices for three courses without wine):

Alla Madonna, Calle de la Madonna, San Polo (00 39 041 522 3824, www.ristoranteallamadonna.com): Buzzy restaurant near the Rialto, popular with family groups; £25pp.

Vini da Arturo, Calle dei Assassini, San Marco (528 6974): Small menu with no seafood, but great beef dishes such as bistecca tagliata; £35pp.

Alle Testiere, Calle del Mondo Nuovo, Castello (522 7220): Small (20 seats) osteria specialising in modern Venetian seafood; £30pp.

Osteria Assassini, Rio tera dei Assassini, San Marco (528 7986, www.osteriaaiassassini.it): Set daily menu (Thursday is beef or salt cod, Friday is fish). If you don’t like offal, avoid Wednesday; £25pp.

Corte Sconta, Calle del Pestrin, Castello (522 7024): Feast on the seafood starters, or try the full menu, which will leave you gasping; £35pp.

Alle Vignole, Isola del Vignole (528 9707): Take a water taxi to the island of Vignole, choose your seafood, beef or chicken and have them grilled while you sit at tables under the trees (April to Sept only); £20pp.

Ruga Rialto, Ruga Rialto, San Polo (521 1243): Cheap and cheerful set lunch of local dishes with coffee, biscotti and a carafe of red; £20pp.

Fiaschetteria Toscana, Salizada San Giovanni Grisostomo, Cannareggio (528 5281, www.fiaschetteriatoscana.it): An elegant choice for a big night out, with a superb cellar and tempting dolci trolley; £40pp.

Book a restaurant in Venice

Spaghetti or scampi?
Ten things to taste

Scampi crudi – raw langoustines, halved and drizzled with olive oil.
Baccalà mantecato – creamy salt cod purée.
Brodetto – soupy fish stew.
Fegato alla veneziana – calves’ liver and sweet onions in white wine.
Frittura mista – mixed small fried fish and vegetables.
Pasta e fagioli – hearty pasta and bean soup.
Risi e bisi – a springtime soup of rice and peas.
Sarde in saor – sardines marinated with onions, pine nuts, raisins, vinegar.
Seppioline neri – baby cuttlefish cooked in its own black ink.
Spaghetti alle vongole – pasta with clams.

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