Caffe Umberto I - CALUSO

I visited Alba in early October as part of a group bicycle trip with friends and two local guides. We had a beautiful large table in the basement/wine cellar of the restaurant beautifully lit and elegantly presented. We had a set menu designed to highlight truffles given that we were in the truffle capital of Italy and white truffles are in season in October. Along with the food we also sampled some exceptional wines a 20 year old Barolo and a younger Barbera D' Alba. Both wines were good but the Barolo stood out. Of course. All of the courses were really good. I think oddly for me, the truffles didn't add as much flavor as I thought they might. After starting with an amuse bouche of crostini and porcini mushrooms (super delicious) we had a very light flan with a small piece of pickled yellow pepper which provided a really nice contrast with the flan. The flan was then shaved with copious amounts of black truffle. It was delicious, but maybe being a novice to truffles I didn't quite taste the unique truffle quality. This was followed by a risotto that was also shaved with tons of white truffle. The white truffle really has an amazing fragrance to it, but I can't say that it transferred to a distinct taste for me. I feel like a bit of a cretin for saying this, because these truffles are worth hundreds of dollars and the whole point of the meal was to experience these rare and transient fungi. We had a cut of Fassone beef, braised in red wine, that was like a very high quality pot roast I say that as someone who loves pot roast. But the meat was very lean and exceptionally tender. And rich tasting from the wine. The dessert was one of the best we had at least for chocolate lovers three layers of chocolate. One of chocolate biscotti, with a chocolate flan topped with a darker chocolate mousse. It doesn't sound it, but it was pretty light. The next day (after this pretty amazing meal) we visited a local man who hunts truffles with his specially trained dog. And we learned just how rare the white truffle is, how they cannot be cultivated, and how the scent, which attracts the dog through sometimes as much as 18 of soil, is only present for a couple of hours when the truffle is ripe. So a dog can go back over an area it has already scouted and find a new truffle that simply wasn't ready maybe an hour earlier. Everything about the truffle is mysterious, including, to me the fragrance. I can't compare it to anything else I've ever smelled. I think if you are in Alba you should definitely include truffles in your gastronomical itinerary and Caffe Umberto is an excellent place to try them.