Travel to Piedmont in the Autumn and you should be in for a treat as it is the white truffle season. More expensive pound for pound than gold shavings are sprinkled over your food and depending on how carried away you get the truffle is weighed again and you pay for the grams consumed. On a brief visit to the region at the end of October we stayed in a delightful restaurant with rooms near Alba, Il Vigneto at Roddi (tel +39 0173 615630)
There the young chef is reinterpreting classic Italian dishes. Take Vitello Tonnato for example, veal accompanied by tuna flavoured mayonnaise. In this region the veal is served raw, like a steak tartare, but here raw tuna is wrapped with a thin strip of veal and then quickly seared, then chilled and served cold with the tuna mayonnaise. Creative and truly delicious.
At Michelin starred restaurant La Ciau del Tornavento in Treiso more white truffle appears, this time shaved over a miniature cheese fondue, washed down with some Barolo, the unique aroma of the truffle hard to forget.
Perhaps the star attraction here however is the restaurants cellar, which has to be seen to be believed. Never have I seen such an array of wines, many so rare (mostly Italian) that the choice is bewildering. Stacked in impossibly high piles and with barely enough room to pass there is even a vaulted cellar kept under lock and key. Well worth a visit.
