Piedmontese
Vitello Tonnato: cold veal, tuna-caper cream.
Bagna Cauda
A communal hot dip of garlic, anchovies and olive oil kept warm over a flame, for raw and cooked vegetables — Piedmont's wintertime ritual.
View page →Piedmont sits against the Alps in Italy's northwest, and its cooking shows the French border, the long winters, and a deep respect for the raw materials that made this the birthplace of the Slow Food movement. Butter and rice replace olive oil and pasta on many tables, though the region's egg-rich fresh pastas are famous: tajarin, threads of dough cut from dozens of yolks and dressed simply in butter, and agnolotti del plin, tiny pinched parcels of roasted meat. Antipasti run cold and refined — vitello tonnato, sliced cold veal under a tuna-and-caper cream, and carne cruda all'Albese, hand-chopped raw veal with little more than lemon and oil. Around Alba the white truffle is shaved over everything in autumn, while the Langhe hills pour Barolo and Barbaresco, the wines that braise the famous brasato al Barolo. In the cold months the table gathers around bagna càuda, a warm dip of garlic, anchovy, and oil for dunking raw vegetables. Hazelnuts from the Langhe build the region's sweets — Gianduiotto and bonet, a dark cocoa-and-amaretti pudding — and grissini, the slim breadsticks, were born in Turin.
The Palate
Start Here
Thin slices of cold poached veal blanketed in a silky tuna, caper, and anchovy cream — a refined Piedmontese antipasto.
Why start here · It captures the region's cool, elegant approach to antipasti and its surprising pairing of meat with the sea.
A warm communal dip of garlic, anchovies, and olive oil, kept hot at the table for dunking raw and cooked vegetables through the cold months.
Why start here · It is the social heart of a Piedmontese winter table and shows the region's love of bold garlic and anchovy.
Beef braised for hours in a whole bottle of Barolo until the wine collapses into a deep, glossy sauce.
Why start here · It links the plate directly to the Langhe's celebrated wine and the slow cooking of an Alpine winter.
The Pantry
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Grains & Staples
How They Cook
Techniques that define this cuisine
Kindred Kitchens
Cuisines built on the same signature ingredients
Other regions
Siblings within Italian — each its own tradition.
