Eating and drinking in Turin: tours, historic cafés and tastings

What to taste in Turin

Turin’s food has two sides: the Savoy court, with its elegant cafés and pastry shops, and Piedmont’s farming tradition, with its meat, cheese, hazelnuts and some of Italy’s longest-lived red wines. In a few days you can taste a great deal without going to expensive restaurants.

• Bicerin: coffee, dark chocolate and cream, layered in a small glass and never stirred. The name is Piedmontese for “little glass”.
• Gianduiotto: the chocolate shaped like an upturned boat, made with cocoa and hazelnuts. Caffarel presented it at the 1865 carnival, and dozens of chocolatiers make it today.
• Vermouth: the aromatised wine Antonio Benedetto Carpano created in Turin in 1786. Drink it neat with a twist of orange or in aperitivo cocktails.
• Trattoria dishes: vitello tonnato (veal with tuna sauce), agnolotti del plin (small pinched ravioli), tajarin with butter (with truffle in autumn), beef braised in Barolo, bagna cauda in the cold months, and bonet, a cocoa and amaretti pudding.
• Grissini and tramezzini: hand-stretched breadsticks are a Turin creation, and Caffè Mulassano claims to have invented the tramezzino sandwich.

Historic cafés and aperitivo: a walk to do on your own

You don’t need a guide for Turin’s coffee ritual. A two-hour walk takes in the finest cafés:

• Al Bicerin, Piazza della Consolata: where the drink was born, open since 1763, with a handful of wood and marble tables. It usually closes on Wednesdays, and at weekends you may have to wait.
• Baratti & Milano and Mulassano, between Piazza Castello and the Galleria Subalpina: mirrors, wood panelling and cases of chocolates.
• Caffè San Carlo and Caffè Torino, under the arcades of Piazza San Carlo.
• Fiorio, on Via Po, known for its gianduja ice cream.

From around 6 pm it is aperitivo time: with your drink, often a vermouth or a Negroni, many bars bring snacks or a small buffet. The liveliest areas are the Quadrilatero Romano, San Salvario and the streets around Piazza Vittorio Veneto.

Porta Palazzo and other markets

Porta Palazzo market, on Piazza della Repubblica, is one of the largest open-air markets in Europe: fruit and vegetable stalls, historic covered halls with cheese and salumi, a fish pavilion and a farmers’ section. It runs Monday to Saturday, in the mornings on weekdays and until the evening on Saturdays, when the Balon flea market also fills the nearby streets. Go early, bring cash and snack on a piece of toma cheese or focaccia as you wander. Al Bicerin is five minutes away on foot.

To buy packaged Piedmont produce in one place, head to Eataly Lingotto, the brand’s very first shop, a short walk from the National Automobile Museum.

Piedmont wines: what to order

Piedmont has one of the richest wine lists in Italy, and many wine bars in Turin pour by the glass. The names to know:

• Barolo and Barbaresco: reds from Nebbiolo grapes grown in the Langhe, structured and built to age. They cost more by the glass, but are worth trying at least once.
• Barbera (d’Asti or d’Alba) and Dolcetto: fresher, everyday reds, ideal with salumi and agnolotti.
• Langhe Nebbiolo and Nebbiolo d’Alba: a more affordable way to get to know the Barolo grape.
• Arneis from the Roero and Moscato d’Asti: a dry, fragrant white and a sweet, lightly sparkling dessert white.

To see the vineyards and taste at a winery you need to leave the city: the Langhe are about an hour’s drive away. Routes and travel times are on our page about day trips from Turin.

Which tour or tasting to book

A guided tour makes sense if you are short on time, don’t speak Italian or want someone to explain what you are eating. Most last two and a half to three and a half hours, include five to eight tastings and start in the centre.

• Choco-Story Turin, from €12: a chocolate and gianduja museum beneath the Pfatisch pastry workshop on Via Sacchi, near Porta Nuova, with an audio guide and a tasting at the end. At 4.6/5 from over a hundred reviews, it is the most proven option. Details on our Choco-Story page.
• Food tours on GetYourGuide, from €35: the widest choice of tasting walks, vermouth-themed routes and guided aperitivo evenings, in several languages.
• Food tour with chocolate and wine on Tiqets, from €69: a walk between chocolate shops, ending with a glass of wine. It has one review, positive but not enough to go on.
• Piedmont wine tasting on Tiqets, from €45: one review, rated 3/5. Fine as a quick introduction, but wine lovers will get more from a wine bar or a day at a winery.

Mention allergies and intolerances when you book. In Italy alcohol is only served to over-18s: with teenagers, pick a sweet route or ask for an alcohol-free alternative.

Tips for planning your day

Chocolate and coffee are concentrated in the centre: a morning at Porta Palazzo, Al Bicerin and Piazza Castello, followed by Choco-Story in the afternoon, works well. Coffee lovers can add the Lavazza Museum in the Aurora district. For vermouth, Casa Martini in Pessione, about 20 km south-east, runs visits with tastings: see our Casa Martini page.

Autumn is the tastiest season: harvest time, mushrooms and, on weekends from October to early December, the International White Truffle Fair in Alba. Winter is when the chocolate shops shine, while in summer aperitivo moves outdoors along the Po. Don’t book a food tour on the evening of a winery day trip: two tastings in one day is too much.