Every Autumn the kitchens and restaurants of every dining establishment in northwest Italy are alive with the smell of white truffle. You either get it or you don’t, but for many, your author included, it is culinary heaven. Imagine an intense musky and earthy aroma – like a forest floor after rain – combined with hints of garlic and aged cheese. Each truffle is unique and every restaurateur will have their secret supply source. True truffle hunters take out their trusty dogs and reveal their favoured locations to no-one.
In just under 48 hours in the Alba area your reviewer and his dining comrades ate a lot of truffles. Imagine them grated onto almost anything. Fresh pasta – obviously. Fried egg – why not? Veal tartare – an excellent pairing. The list continues. The experience doesn’t come cheap. While most dishes with this unique sort of fungus attract a natural premium – for scarcity is high and supply seasonally variable – if diners want it shaved by the gram, then the price point is around €10-15. To take home (but beware, since the truffle will keep for no more than five days), keen punters can expect to pay between a quarter and a third less.
To suggest, however, that Piedmontese cooking is defined by the truffle at this time of year is incorrect. A visit to La Rei Natura was one of the most memorable your author has experienced anywhere recently. Sure, truffle was in abundance, but chef Michelangelo Mammoliti showcased a master class in daring to be different. His restaurant’s two Michelin stars were richly deserved. At the age of 40, he may not be at the peak of his culinary excellence yet – and a third star could be imminent.
The chef comes from Calabria but has made Piemonte his home. Michelangelo’s whole dining conception starts with respect for the local environment. Translate the venue’s name into English and you come out with ‘the king of nature.’ It may be a bold claim, but equally a valid one. The culinary team espouses passionately the use of seasonal and local ingredients, and the underlying thought process is that guests should go on a culinary journey. “Everything is before your eyes,” says Michelangelo.
Three menus are available to choose from: ‘Emozione’ (reflecting childhood influences), ‘Selvatica’ (informed by Michelangelo’s travels around the world) and ‘Mad 100% Natura’ (a blind tasting mash up). We opted for the second of the three, since it was exceptionally seasonal – not just truffle heavy, but full of game too. The detailed notes kindly provided by the restaurant describe how the chef’s experiences in France, Japan Lebanon and Mexico contributed to this eight-dish tasting tour.
Amuse bouches with our aperitifs that included eel and red mullet were a sign of things to come. Mammoliti showed a use of bold flavours and an unconventional approach in packing visual appeal and flavour intensity into fingerfuls of food. When seated at the table, an appetite-whetter of salted beignet with mushroom ragu topped by black truffle took things to a whole new level. The chef had gone up a gear before we were even properly started. Bread – often the best yardstick to measure any restaurant – was also superb. Fluffy focaccia was elevated by a truly unique (and seasonally chosen) olive oil pairing. Its pine needle bitterness was unprecedented. Guests might viscerally imagine being in a forest.
The show then got fully going. If there were commonalities across the dishes we sampled, then it became abundantly clear that the chef has a clear love of acid and fermentation. These are not just cheap tricks to ramp up the intensity of dishes, but more to demonstrate how cooking can be pushed to the limits. Humble porcini mushrooms saw a pink shiso foam added to it. For the uninitiated, shiso is a Japanese herb that evokes mint, basil, cinnamon, citrus and anise. You’d know if you’d had it. Similarly, foie gras – a familiar high-end restaurant staple – was interpreted here by adding pomegranate juice and peach. One of my dining comrades described this pairing as a ‘challenge to the palate’ – but one that the chef more than fulfilled.
The procession went on and the truffles came out too. Dish of the night for your reviewer was the ‘royale.’ On face value, it was simply hare ravioli, in a sauce and topped with truffles. Of course, you need top quality ingredients to pull something like this off well. The trick, apparently, is to grill the saddle of the hare and then infuse it with whisky and strawberries to balance its strong character. The taste was truly memorable and lingered long after. Each dish contained a signature wow moment. ‘Bonkers’ was the word your author appended to his note on the closing dessert dish. Imagine – if you can – pickled cherry ice cream in a sweet celeriac pasta strudel topped with popcorn, caramel and what looked like Rice Krispies. Few chefs have the verve, vision or panache to deliver on something like this.
At €285/ head, excluding truffle surcharge, this is not a cheap night out, but a truly memorable one. It was enhanced by the wines our group brought (and uncorked at a €50/bottle surcharge), but La Rei’s list offers many gems too. While this was a truly special meal, visitors to Piemonte would not be disappointed at all by Sunsi, the more informal restaurant in the Boscareto resort where we dined on night two. Shout outs too to our two nearby lunching venues: Campamac in Barbaeresco and Le Torri in Casteglione Falletto. Both were excellent and we got our fill of truffles amply. For more than this though, La Rei is a must.