If you like fresh, homemade, spectacular food THIS is the place for you!…read moreIf I could give it a million stars it still wouldn't be enough. This place is spectacular in every sense of the word The food is not only fresh and homemade but has that quintessential "italian " love that you can only get from those that have TRUE passion for what they do and life overall. If you are in Leeds - and let's face it - why would you not be??!! Go to La Piola. The staff is friendly and make you feel at home immediately. The food is so delicious you will only ever compare every other meal in your life to it, and the atmosphere in this 9 table restaurant will keep you asking " why isn't it bigger?" If you are lucky enough to snag a table here you are truly in for an experience of a lifetime! Enjoy the gem of a restaurant!!

Perfectly situated in the center of town is the busy and chic: La Piola. It was by happenstance…read morethat we walked by, captured by the near full indoor and outdoor dining space filled with happy diners, and fortunately they had one table for us! This was hands down the best pasta with truffles we had.

Local fare. It was truly a unique culinary experience. The food is beautifully presented. The…read moreTagliata was delicious along with the Cannolo di Baccala, zucchue e limon. Cheesecake di Piselu was refreshing on a hot, humid evening and the Risotto con Fungi was creamy and flavorful. I would recommend this place to my friends.

One of the reasons we keep coming back to the region is the food, wine and places like this. Menu…read moreon a chalkboard. Staples of the Piedmontese- Carne cruda, Vitelli tonnato, tajarin, plin. And this time of year, tartufo bianco- White truffles. Everything here is just fabulous. We were super lucky to get in without a reservation. If you are in La Morra, this place is a must!

I was going to this restaurant with high expectations. It did not live up to them. Excellent…read morepresentation. Extensive wine list. Polite staff. Food was good but not spectacular. Tortellini dish was just barely warm. But main thing that shocked me was desert issue. I did not like it and left it almost untouched. When manager saw it he went a long way to understand why I did not eat it. When I said that there was nothing wrong with the desert and it was just my personal preference he lost any concern or interest. You would expect in such high end place they would offer replacement to satisfy the client. What it would cost them, five Euro? Nope, nothing like that. They did not care. Therefore three stars and not coming back or recommending to anyone.

We saw that they could arrange a private truffle hunt - definitely arrange this ahead of time…read more When we arrived at 9:30am, they had water and some sweets and cookies laid out very nicely for us. We were greeted by the owner, the manager (?), our truffle hunger, and our interpreter. The truffle hunt was €30 a person, and the interpreter was €40 an hour (2 hour hunt), which was well worth it. Her English was perfect, and she could help explain everything the truffle hunters were saying in both Italian and Piedmontese. We learned a ton about truffles and the process. We drove out about 10-15 min away to a random area and were surprised that the dogs started sniffing and finding stuff right away. It was a drought year, which explains the outrageous prices, but they found some black ones and some tiny white ones. There ended up being two truffle hunters and their loyal dogs, and they just train dogs and do this for the love of it - not just to sell to restaurants. If you wanted, you could pay for the truffles that were found, but they were honest and said the quality wasn't great. It was a super educational experience and seemed better than the more expensive one offered by the Fiera de Tartufo. After the hunt, we had some time to walk around town before lunch. When we came back in, the dining room was about half full by 12:30pm, completely full after that. We started with a basket of bread, crackers, and grissini all made in house - I loved the lingua cracker (like the Rustic Bakery ones in the US). Then, they brought over some house made butter and soft focaccia. We opted for a Riserva from Coppo next door, which is a big local producer in Canelli. It's too bad we didn't get to go see their famous underground cellars. To start (on the house): Puréed cauliflower with a soft cooked quail egg, topped with white truffle - possibly my favorite dish. The tasting menu is incredibly reasonable at €55 per person (they also had a la carte and a €45 option). We opted to skip truffles since we had been eating them at every meal, but it seems like everyone else was going all out with truffles. Tasting (degutazione): €55 1. Veal tartare: with a marinated egg yolk and an amazing balsamic reduction. This was great with the long lingua cracker. 2. Fondue: with porcini and crispy bread - I've never had such big fresh porcini mushrooms before - they were generous on the mushrooms. The cheese was great 3. Tajerin: served table side. I regretted not adding truffles since the buttery noodles were basically made as a vehicle for truffles 4. Risotto: quite al dente. I liked the sauce - a jus/reduction drizzled in. It was served with a roasted cardoon. In the end, I couldn't finish all of the rice 5. Lamb: I actually wanted something lighter and got a seasonal zucca (pumpkin soup) as a substitution, which I was happy with. I did try the lamb. It was on the saltier side but wasn't too gamey 5. Cheese plate: at this point, I was so full (and jet lagged), but they made me a small plate with local cheeses and house made marmalade's (all very interesting using local seasonal produce). When we went to pay up front, they had a nice tray of chocolates, chocolate truffles, torrino, cookies for us by the door to nibble on. In the end, for the truffle hunt, interpreter, meal, and very nice bottle of wine, it was about €300 for 2 of us. Service was very polite, we never felt rushed, and I thought the truffle hunt experience was pretty unique and awesome. They do speak English in the restaurant. The drive was about 40 min from Alba. I would definitely recommend driving out here for the truffle hunt experience (5 stars) and the lunch (a great value for a Michelin starred place).

I depend on Yelp reviews to help me make a better decision. I realize there were only eight and…read moresome from a long time ago, Sadly, I found the food to be very disappointing. Perhaps it was just the kind of food and other people would like it. We had the vegetable salad, which was apparently grilled vegetables in a mayonnaise base. It reminded me of egg salad. We had the mushroom risotto, which was actually pretty good, but I had it a few nights earlier, at another restaurant where I thought it was exceptional. Finally, we had the braised beef in a Barolo wine sauce. Sorry, not good at all. We had the cheese tray, which was delightful. We had the best bottle of wine I've ever had. The service was fabulous. Our server was so kind and had everything split for us. I really wanted to like the food and maybe it was just a bad night. I thought the ambience in the front of the restaurant was more Italian authentic. The back was a little more eclectic but still nice. My favorite part was a bottle of wine that our server recommended and the complementary appetizer they gave us. The cheese selection was great. If I lived in the area, I would definitely come back and try them again because I think they just had a bad night.

Okay we have not been here since 2009, well before I was Yelping! Here is what I wrote on my blog…read moreback then: A few weeks ago we were in Barolo, Italy and enjoyed a fabulous meal at a restaurant called La Cantinetta. The food was great and the service fun and relaxed. Here are a few photos from that evening. We ordered the antipasti tasting which happened to be five courses of starters. We expected a lot of local cured meats and pickled veggies - we were very pleasantly surprised that was not the case! The first course or amuse bouche was a very thin slice of local salami and small blini sized frittata of greens - crispy on the outside yet tender and with great flavor. We didn't think to photograph the dishes until the next course arrived - a rabbit mousse with caramelized red onions and toasted brioche. OMG! Heavenly, and for those of you squeemish about rabbit just think of it as a chicken with fur. It was amazing - creamy, savory, sweet and crunchy! he next course was delicious vitello tonnato. Have always shied away from this dish thinking it was too strange a pairing. Well I was wrong. A tender, perfectly roasted slice of veal with a tuna and caper sauce. We had to have seconds, hence the dirty plate in the picture! That was followed by a famous raviolo filled with verdura (chopped mixed greens), a soft egg yolk and topped with Parmigiano Reggiano and browned butter. Amazing that such simple and pure flavors could be so response provoking. The mmm's and oh my's kept flying out of our mouths as we devoured this delicacy. To bring it to the next level they offered a crispy asparagus tart with a fonduta sauce. It's hard to describe how perfectly crisp and yet light the pastry shell was on this dish. The cheesy sauce was a perfect smooth and silky accompaniment to the crisp and tender asparagus in the tart. To amaze one even further a dish of spinach gnocci with gorgonzola sauce was beyond description. Surely we will never have gnocci this light and tender without it being at all wet as most gnocci tend to be. We had braced ourselves for knock your head off gorgonzola flavor only to find that the chef used a slight hand with such a potentially overwhelming cheese. A dish / the local classic - ravioli al plin - were tasty but woefully inadequte next to that masterpiece of spinach gnocci. Regardless of the tastier dish on the table, all the ravioli al plin were consumed! We had no room for dessert and missed what appeared to be a delicious mixed berry tart that we saw them shaping in the pan just as we were arriving. We can't wait to return to the area in the future and experience another wonderful meal here.

Excellent small restaurant ambiance, great authentic food and superior service despite being busy…read moreevery night.

Our hotel owner recommended this place to us on a Monday saying it was good, local food. They…read moreopened at 7:30 and we arrived at 7:15 on a raining evening. The door was open and we poked our heads in to ask if they had any open reservations. The owner told us to come in and stay, that they were pretty busy with reservations but he had a couple seats open and with the weather we shouldn't go back out. He wasn't wrong, by 7:40 the place was basically full. A couple of individuals wandered in and he did his best to create a communal table to serve them. When we arrived one waiter was still hand writing the menus for the day and the owner was busy readying the wine selection. They brought us a menu, the waiter spoke English and was able to describe the 10 things on the rough menu. When we asked if they had rabbit he jokingly remarked 'no, none were running around the place today'. We opted for a 1/2 bottle of barolo, a portion of tajarin ragú (spaghetti with meat sauce), Milanese and brasato (traditional stewed veal). As per norm plenty of bread was served. The entrees came with sautéed vegetables. The brasato was good, meat was soft and flavorful and sitting at this long, wooden, communal table I could completely envision eating this as a traditional dish. The tajarin was perfect for my taste. It was not sauce heavy so if you prefer a meat sauce like that this is not for you. I loved how the homemade spaghetti and the meat really stood out with a very small amount of sauce to bind the two. The Milanese was great. Pounded thin and pan fried in butter, the flavor was tremendous. Living in Italy could really make me like veal! We did not get dessert but the waiter brought us some local appertif to try. It was very sweet but with bitters, an interesting mix. People watching in this place was great. I got a lot of amusement out of it and it was just the sort of place I was looking for in Italy. A place where people gather, are loud, laugh and enjoy home cooked food without frills.

We enjoyed a nice lunch at this hillside restaurant located in the Barbaresco wine district on a…read moreFriday in July. We were in the area with a guide tasting some wine and it's was time for lunch. They've got a beautiful Terrace overlooking the Vineyards with a great view. To start we enjoyed a plate of wonderful burrata with delightfully shaved Parma ham. We each chose a pasta for our main course-me the thin spaghetti with rich and flavorful meat sauce and my wife ordered the tiny hand-pinched pasta in butter with a generous shaving of black truffle. Both were delicious. The star of the meal was the setting on a beautiful Terrace overlooking the vineyards. It was very special. Recommended

We had a reservation on Saturday based on a recommendation of a close friend. When we arrived the…read morestaff was very friendly but then it went down hill from that point forward. We order a local wine which we had tasted only an hour earlier. We were a table of five and three of us ordered there three course menu and others order only two courses. The staff could not figure out that they should have kept the menue in the same order for everyone, first the appetisers, followed by thesecond course then main. What happened was they brought the appetiser for three and the second course for others which through off the schedule and appeared to have significantly delayed one main for one of us. In short the main course showed up so late two people had to leave the table because they were being eaten by mosquitoes while two of us had two wait for their main. If the poor serves was not bad enough when a second bottle of the local wine was requested they only then informed us they did not have another bottle. One would have thought that with a table of five guest they would have informed the table when they brought us the first bottle that they did not have any more in stock and that if we planned to have two bottle we may want to make another selection. When I raised my concern with the service, late service of the main for the final two guest with the manager she simply did not want to hear the issues and proceed my credit card with no remorse. We will never return to the restaurant and I will be more than happy to post about the poor attitude of the manager. The other issues would have been forgiven but the managers attitude and lack of apology simple cant be overlooked.

Recommended by the manager of the apartment we rented for 4 days and it was across the piazza from…read morethe apartment tucked away in a little courtyard off the piazza. Great service and food. Must have reservations.

Delicious regional dishes, quite refined and delicious! Very…read morepersonable service and on point ! Vibrant ambiance with white table cloth setting. Very inviting and comfortable. Tried their Tajarin, simple and divine. Noticeable wine selections!