You can also find out more about Many renowned dining destinations have hosted the annual “food Oscars” – the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. Turin, the capital of Piedmont in Italy, will host the 19th June ceremony. This is the first year that the honor has been given to Italy. Piedmont is a proud foodie region, even though Emilia-Romagna has been regarded as Italy’s food capital. It boasts white truffles as well as rice, chocolates, cheeses, pastas, and other dishes.
Turin, the former capital city of Savoy, is a greener city than most Italian cities. It also boasts a large river, a market, a royal palace, and arguably Europe’s largest outdoor market. You can stroll, bike, or kayak along the Po River. This is the place where vermouth, (see below) куин у друи налдени мсн Breadsticks and Espresso coffee were created.
Savio Losito is the co-founder and CEO of App Unexpected Italy, to show me places across Turin where a visitor can plug into its food scene without spending €100 a head.
Latteria Bera
In 1958, the grandmother and great-aunts of Chiara Franzoso opened this Turin dairy to provide fresh milk from surrounding hills. Chiara Franzoso maintains her relationship with the small producers and stocks a wide range of aged and fresh cow, goat, and sheep cheeses, as well as charcuterie products I’ve never seen before, like cooked salami. UK visitors may be surprised to see locals popping in for her most popular dairy product – fresh cream whipped with sugar and vanilla in an antique mixer and served in little pots – like ice-cream – with nuts, chocolate or a dollop of warm zabaglione.
Takeaway trays and tastings from €8.50.
Turin Classics like carne cruda (beef tartare), vitello tonnato On hundreds of menus, you’ll find dishes like (veal with creamy tuna mayonnaise), braised cheeks and stuffed pasta. It does all of them beautifully but also adds some innovative dishes, such as goat cheese with almonds, tomatoes and house-dried toms, and marinated apricots. Paolo Fantini, the boss of this city institution, advises that we eat what’s in season. You can find out more about this on the website. The risotto is also oozy. The friendly atmosphere is also striking: Paolo making sure a waitress doesn’t look stressed and joking with a young Sommelier.
Two-course lunch with wine or dessert from €15.
Name is a French/Piedmontese joke by the founder, Luisa Pandolfi. vitello tonnato (vitel tonné In dialect, this would be “astonished veal”. That may pass anglophone diners by, but the meat is exemplary – cooked for nine hours at just 52C. Other antipasti from head chef Massimiliano Brunetto include tripe (which is actually quite tasty), anchovies in green and red sauce and wonderful stuffed courgette flower in rice batter. Continue with the local pastas. tajarín Carbonara with asparagus and hand-cut ribbons guanciale; agnolotti Stuffed with beef, pork and veal and served with roasting liquids.
Two courses are available. about €30. On July 1, they will open a pasta take-out shop across the street.
Named “ancient evenings”, this restaurant, located west of the center in a residential neighborhood, makes you feel as if you are in an old book or movie. A summer meal under the vine-covered pergola is even more magical when chef Daniele rotates appears to greet customers and make jokes. This restaurant, run by Antonella and several family members, is traditional in the best possible way. The handwritten menu has all the classics, as well ribstickers like pork shank, potatoes and rabbit stew with white wine. The “electric” is my favourite. Tomini Cheeses with green herb sauce infused with chilli.
Two courses from €22.
Martina and Gabriele Bruzzone, a brother-sister duo who learned their love of food from their grandparents, opened a deli which evolved into a restaurant with 30 seats (40 if you include the street outside). The restaurant offers a wide range of dishes, including some plant-based ones. I begin with porcini mushroom in a fujot Ceramic dish with candle to keep bagna cauda A plate of warm (plus a cup of tea) giardiniera Pickled vegetables, and a fennel salad. Plin Keep the theme meat-free with goat ricotta, asparagus and asparagus. New to mark the 50 Best launch are house-made apricot or cherry ice lollies – refreshing and singing of summer fruit.
Two courses from €20. Booking essential.
This dark, intimate restaurant is widely admired for Sicilian chef Valentina Chiaramonte’s modern twists – “I take the history and make it into a novel,” she says – and its strict insistence on organic and natural wines. Slow Food dishes are marked with a snail on the menu. A crispy egg is served on top of braised chard. Grilled asparagus with peas, cream, and pinenuts are also available. Savio takes one for the team by ordering its famed offal selection – pig’s foot, brain salad, confit lung and grilled Matrix (cow’s vagina). It’s good, I believe him.
Two courses from €32.
In the San Salvario district along the river, this piola Dialect for Osteria(serves a mostly chilled meal merenda sinoira. Lorenzo Coscia’s co-founder Lorenzo Coscia recalled his grandparents eating a traditional Piedmontese country supper. There’s some relief in knowing that not all Italian dishes are multi-course affairs. From a regularly changing “small plates” menu we choose tasty potato croquettes, marinated onions, thinly sliced tongue with tomato and pepper sauce, rabbit liver paté and fresh tomini cheeses with herby sauce. The wine list is exclusively Piedmontese. It is open all afternoon and is ideal for those with kids who need to eat before the restaurants open.
Dishes from €4.
This city is full of ice cream parlors. Mara dei Boschi is a favourite, but now that it has branches in Milan and Barolo as well, the company is no longer small. Aria, in the studenty Vanchiglia district, was opened in 2022 by Roberto Speranza, who worked all over Italy and in Paris before returning to Piedmont and naming his gelateria after its main ingredient – the air beaten into gelato. Roberto Speranza’s ice creams “tell the tale of the region” by using local producers for saffron and mountain honey. Hazelnuts, olive oil, and hazelnuts are also used. The flavours include the liquorice and violet “Il Senateur” as preferred by Camillo Benso Count of Cavour and a popcorn and caramel.
Turin has been associated with chocolate since a Savoy duke wed a Spanish princess, gaining access to world imports. Turin’s cooks were probably the first to combine cacao and sugar to create bars. There are many chocolate shops in the city, but most of them are industrial-sized. In the Borgo Nuovo neighborhood, a former publishing executive Paolo Lovisolo offers top-quality chocolates made daily. His wares, with salted caramel, pistachio, orange peel and even – deliciously – rosemary, should all be eaten within three weeks.
Turin is the leader in the creation of aperitifs, which may not be surprising considering its food. The bar near the river is a good place to find out about their history. Nicola Piazza, the owner of the bar with 20 years’ experience in the drinks industry, takes us back to the origins and history of vermouth. He explains how adding bitter herbs into wine stimulates the production of saliva and “opens” your stomach. We taste three vermouths neat, including a special-edition Martini “di Torino”, then make three cocktails, including one named after a gin-loving 19th-century count called … Negroni. Cocchi vermouth and sparkling water are better for me than any Aperol.
Vermouth Voyage €45pp
What to do?
Landscape designer Giuliana Marsiaj opened B&B Look TO (doubles from €180) in 2019, in an 1830s palazzo overlooking vast Piazza Vittorio Veneto and walking distance from Porta Nuova station and the river. The two sitting rooms are decorated in rich dark teal, glowing red and sunny yellow, eschewing the tasteful neutrals found in many Turin interiors. The four rooms are named after different flowers. Giglio is the largest and has a bathroom with a red marble finish, as well as a mural of tropical flowers in the shower.
Accommodation is provided by Look TOFind venue information in the Turin section on app Unexpected Italy.
