Eating the gracious white truffle in Langhe: our very best addresses, all of them self-taught in 2024/2025

 

 

How can it matter so much to "eat white truffle"? Year after year, we write to a selected group of addresses that experience a Winemaker's Dinner with us during the weekends. An initiative of our other company www.piemontetravel.eu. We organize multiple groups to keep the number at maximum 12 people participation per trip. However this year we have had exceptions to this with up to 24 people participating. Besides "consuming" truffles, we also visit at least 3 of the wine domains of the online website www.madeinpiedmont-wines.be. This year there was even one group that could experience Truffle at the Trufflehunter's "exclusive" home with long tables, the entire family in the hall and in the kitchen, all but meat homemade products. It really couldn't be more authentic.

It is a golden moment for all lovers of the Tuber Magnatum Pico, the most appreciated E truffle, celebrated every year at the International Fair of Alba (the 95th edition will take place from October 11 to December 8). A fair full of events, courses, tastings, routes also dedicated to children, and where tourists from all over the world gather. The city becomes the navel of the truffle planet for almost two months, but in the Langhe and Roero during this period special menus are the order of the day.

Where to eat white truffle in the Langhe

Osteria Del Borgo

In the heart of the village where the famous Festa del Bue Grasso takes place, this historic trattoria is the ideal place to enjoy the most authentic local cuisine, the flagship of which is the "Bollito storico Risorgimentale Piemontese," with seven cuts of meat and the canonical seven sauces, in homage to King Victor Emmanuel II. But the entire cuisine tells the regional tradition with substance: from raw meat all'albese to vitello tonnato, from peppers in bagna cauda to fritto misto and homemade tajarin with truffles. In summer, the menu is lightened with fresher dishes. The cellar is well-stocked and clear, with an interesting depth of vintages.

Restaurant Carrù

 

Campamac

A modern and cozy restaurant firmly rooted in traditional flavors and products. This is the solid creation of chef Maurilio Garola (La Ciau del Tornavento in Treiso) and Paolo Dalla Mora (an expert in spirits and catering) who have created a project fueled by high-quality raw materials, starting with the raw materials carefully sourced from the supply chain, moving on to the prized cuts of meat that are aged internally (such as the loin of the Dolomite cow with a dry aging of 60 days), and ending with seasonal gourmet delicacies such as white truffles. A must are the fresh pastas (as homemade as the bread), from tajarin with 40 egg yolks.

Campamac - Barbaresco (CN) - s.da Giro della Valle, 1 - 0173 635051 - campamac.com


Inside the Enoteca

Exactly thirty years have passed since the birth of this elegant restaurant cum Roero regional wine store, and chef Davide Palluda must have made some kind of diabolical pact, because he seems unaffected by the passage of time. And so is his cuisine, always precise and rich, connected to the region but able to draw wisely from elsewhere. Classics such as Fassone from head to toe, plin al tovagliolo and finanziera remain on the menu. The morels on tartare and coffee also stand out, and the venison served in two cuts, filet and loin, with peaty whiskey and fermented cocoa is fascinating. Wine list extensive, with room for those from the Roero, an area that has helped put Palluda on the podium of the regional gastronomic map in recent years.

All'Enoteca - Canale (CN) - via Roma, 57 - 0173 95857 - davidepalluda.it

The center

In 2026, the Cordero family's restaurant will be seventy years old. It is run with proven professionalism and friendly precision by Enrico, with his son Giampiero increasingly dedicated to the important wine cellar, while in the kitchen his wife Elide delights the taste buds with a proposal linked to the area and the seasons with hints of the other side of the Alps. Their love for their craft is expressed in a seemingly simple and banal dish like prosciutto in gelatin, where in reality the piece of culatello is marinated and cooked by them and accompanied by sprouts, sauces and small cubes of gelatin, a true symphony of flavors. Delicate gnocchi with morels and tarragon are offset by savory little agnolotti with bread, butter and anchovies. Impressive wine cellar.

Il Centro - Priocca (CN) - via Umberto I, 5 - 0173 616112 - ristoranteilcentro.com

Cathedral Square

Enrico Crippa is the black swan of the Italian (and, after all, international) gastronomic scene. He has little use for kitchen diplomacy and social drift, and it is others who roll out the red carpet to flush him out of his capsule in downtown Alba. The beautiful vegetable garden, created in days gone by, the size of a small Italian municipality and maintained by skilled and passionate people, may no longer make headlines, but it remains an exciting commodity. Crippa listens to it, interprets it and adapts dishes based on the daily harvest. Always striking, everywhere, is the simplicity, the essence, the clarity of the culinary discourse. The fruit of hard work, certainly, but never showy, as should always be the case at the great tables of the world.

Risorgimento, 4 - 0173 366167 - piazzaduomoalba.it

Pico Bistrot in Madernassa

Indeed, in the kitchen are the talented brothers Giuseppe and Francesco D'Errico, who formed a partnership with the Montanaro family from Tartuflanghe and somehow started back at their origins. That is, territory and comprehensibility. On the menu, at fair prices given the blazon of the establishment, rabbit tuna, tajarin with veal ragout, cod brandade in tempura, Piedmontese bunet. Balanced wine list with a wide selection.

Pico Bistrot in Madernassa - Guarene (CN) - loc. Lora, 2 - 0173 328283 - lamadernassa.it

La Rei Natura by Michelangelo Mammoliti

Conscious and very confident, Michelangelo Mammoliti draws in this resort nestled in the hills of the Langhe - owned by the Dogliani family - one of the most rigorous and coherent gastronomic itineraries in Piedmont (the new and only new tristellato), and not only. The subtitle is already a manifesto (Come natura crea), which Michelangelo takes up - with unusual sensitivity and a clear inclination toward cultural dialogue - and turns the meal into a formative moment. The key, as he likes to describe it, is neurogastronomic, a mental exploration in search of memories and emotions. The main menu is Mad100% Natura, ten freehand dishes that forge an alliance between chef and guest. The dining ritual is dynamic: it traverses different environments - from the aperitif to the cozy experience to the dessert room. And it is all-encompassing, almost sensual, because Mammoliti is one of the few who masters every detail.

Rei Natura by Michelangelo Mammoliti - Serralunga d'Alba (CN) - via Roddino, 21 - 0173 613042 ilboscaretoresort.it

 

Big stage for OSTERIA LA TORRE

I myself lived in the hills between Cherasco and La Morra and so could often be found in this restaurant which is a real stayer. Indeed, in Cherasco there have been some changes in recent times. Also in Barbaresco, my residence before Cherasco, we have super pearls that are not really known to the public yet due to change of owners and name.

Agnolotti del plin al fondo bruno, tajarin al ragù, potato gnocchi with Castelmagno cheese and leeks of Cervere, white truffle (when autumn comes).... here everything speaks of tradition and territory, of intense and authentic flavors - the flavors that characterize Piedmont and draw tourists from all over the world here - but with a pinch of healthy contemporaneity. The raw materials are carefully selected and the baked products (bread, breadsticks, focaccia), as well as the pastas, are homemade. In addition, the Falco brothers have a well-structured wine list that leaves plenty of room for Piedmont, without forgetting the rest of Italy, and reserves a rich choice even on the transalpine front, especially Champagne. The service is attentive and friendly.

Osteria La Torre - Cherasco (CN) - via Ospedale, 22 - 0172 488458 - osterialatorrecherasco.it

 

What wine to drink with a White Truffle dish

Most perfect expression is of course Nebbiolo, Barolo or Barbaresco.

Some of our top picks

 

Barolo 2020 Docg - Cassini Gavetta (promo price)

 

Barolo Corini Pallaretta (cru) 2019 Docg - Cascina Gavetta

 

Barolo del Commmune de la Morra Docg - Rizieri - 2018 (promo price)

 

Mötziflon Colline Novaresi Nebbiolo Doc 2021 - Francesco Brigatti

 

Barbaresco 2020 - Sergio Ternavasio

 

Langhe Nebbiolo 2022 - Umberto Fracassi

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