October is the start of white truffle season in Alba, Italy. My friends and I did a weekend trip to eat, drink, truffle hunt and go to the white truffle festival which was a lot of fun. The weather was sunny and warm for late October which was an added bonus.

We picked up a car from Turin airport and we stayed one night in Turin and another night in Alba which were good bases to explore.

Day 1 – Turin

We arrived to Turin in the evening and had dinner at Ristorante Larossa. We went for their “espressioni” tasting menu which was 6 courses for €125. Some of the dishes were nice but overall it was too creative where some of the combinations just did not work. It was slightly disappointing, as Cal and Claudia had already been in Alba previously and rated it highly.

Day 2 – Turin / Alba / Barbaresco

The next day we had breakfast at Caffe Platti where I had a savoury croissant and hot chocolate. We then went for a quick walk around the centre to see some sights. I’d like to come back to properly experience the city. However, as our focus for the weekend was truffles, we drove to Alba which took around 1.5 hours.

We had lunch at Voglia di Vino where we had an amazing 5 course white truffle tasting menu for €145. All the dishes were delicious with my favourites being the uovo poche and the tajarin al burro.

We then headed to the Fiera Internazionale de Tartufo Bianco d’Alba where we did two wine tastings and checked out each stall with its various samples.

In the evening, we drove to a town just outside Alba called Barbaresco. We had a bottle of wine from a wine stop nearby and sat outside drinking, before heading to Campamac Osteria for dinner. The restaurant has a lovely interior and vibe and the food was mostly decent but unfortunately, the service wasn’t great and therefore we had a very mixed experience.

Day 3 – Alba / Cast / Asti

The next morning, we went out to learn about truffles and do a truffle hunt in the forest where the dog (Katy) found some truffles.

We had a quick pitstop at Nas Cetta and drank some Piedmont sparkling before heading for lunch at Wine Story in Castagnole. They had a white truffle menu and there was no pressure to do the entire menu (we could pick and choose) which I thought was great. We shared the prawns, fried egg with white truffle, tajarin with white truffle and the tajarin with ragu. Everything was so tasty! The barolo garetti that the waiter recommended for us was also the best red wine I had during the trip.

We had our last stop in Asti where we walked around and got some gelato, before heading to the airport.

It was an expensive weekend but totally worth every cent as we ate some really good food, drank delicious wines of the region and explored different cities and towns. I will only be eating white truffle from now on 😉