Where to Eat in Turin: Best Restaurants, Cafés and Local Favorites
Turin doesn’t get the food credit it deserves. Ask most people about Italian food cities and you’ll hear Rome, Naples, Bologna. Turin rarely makes the list. After six years of living here, we can tell you that’s a serious oversight.
We moved to Turin not really knowing what to expect from the food scene. What we found was one of the most serious, proud and quietly extraordinary culinary cultures in Europe. The Piemontese don’t shout about it. They just cook well and expect you to notice.
This is the city where vermouth was invented in 1786, where bicerin has been served since 1763 and where gianduiotto chocolate was born. It’s the land of tajarin and plin, of vitello tonnato and bagna cauda, of Barolo and Barbaresco. The produce from the surrounding Langhe and Monferrato is some of the finest in Italy. And the restaurants, from century-old trattorie to Michelin-starred kitchens, know exactly what to do with it.
Six years gave us a very long list. Here is the version we’d give a friend arriving for the first time.
What’s in This Guide
- What to Eat and Drink in Turin
- Traditional Piemontese Restaurants
- Seafood
- Pizza
- Something Different
- Coffee, Pastries and the Bicerin Ritual
- Gelato
- Aperitivo, Vermouth and Cocktails
- Focaccia and Bread
First: What to Eat and Drink in Turin
Tajarin is Turin’s answer to tagliatelle, but cut razor-thin and made with a ludicrous number of egg yolks. Typically served with butter and white truffle in season or a rich meat ragù. Order it everywhere.
Plin are tiny pinched pasta parcels stuffed with roast meat, served in brodo or with butter and sage. If you see agnolotti del plin on a menu, order it.
Vitello tonnato is cold sliced veal under a creamy tuna sauce. Sounds odd and tastes extraordinary. A Piemontese staple on almost every menu.
Bagna cauda is literally “hot bath”: a warm fondue of anchovies, garlic and olive oil served with vegetables for dipping. A winter dish, deeply Piemontese and not for those averse to garlic.
Bicerin is Turin’s iconic café drink: layered espresso, drinking chocolate and cream in a small glass. Non-negotiable.
Vermouth di Torino is the real thing. Turin invented it. Locals drink it on the rocks with a twist of orange before dinner and so should you.
Gianduiotto is the boat-shaped hazelnut chocolate Turin gave to the world. Pick some up at any chocolatier or at Caffè Baratti & Milano.
Traditional Piemontese Restaurants
1. Ristorante Del Cambio
📍 Piazza Carignano, 2
Del Cambio has been open since 1757 and is one of the most storied restaurants in Italy. Cavour was a regular. So were Nietzsche and Maria Callas. If you watch Stanley Tucci’s Searching for Italy, he dedicates a whole episode to it. We went, and the food was genuinely excellent. Serious Piemontese cooking at its best, the kind of meal you think about for a long time after. We were a bit sad not to be seated in the main dining room, which has gilded mirrors and frescoed ceilings and looks like something out of a film. Book ahead and ask for the main room when you reserve.
2. Tre Galline
📍 Via Bellezza, 37 (Quadrilatero Romano)
One of the oldest restaurants in Turin, with origins going back 500 years. The dining room has wood-beamed ceilings and an atmosphere that feels genuinely historical rather than performed. Ring the bell to enter. The menu is a catalogue of Piemontese classics: raw meat with anchovy sauce, vitello tonnato, agnolotti with roast sauce and a wine list that does justice to the Langhe. Reservations are essential.
3. Trattoria Piemontese
📍 Via Bellezia, 37 (Quadrilatero Romano)
More than 50 years in and still packed with locals every service. This is the place for bollito misto, finanziera, tajarin and the full breadth of Piemontese cucina povera. Nothing flashy, nothing modernised. Rated as one of the most authentic traditional restaurants in the city by everyone from Michelin inspectors to the people who grew up eating here.
4. Scannabue
📍 Largo Saluzzo, 25h (San Salvario)
Michelin Bib Gourmand and a fixture of San Salvario for good reason. The setting sits somewhere between a Parisian bistro and an English club, the wine list is excellent and the Piemontese classics are served with some impressive technical touches. The rabbit cooked in a jar is quietly extraordinary. Open late. One of our most-visited spots over six years.
5. La Via del Sale
📍 Via San Francesco da Paola, 2
One of our absolute favourites, and a place we first found on a scouting trip before we even moved to Turin. La Via del Sale does seasonal Piemontese cooking with real commitment: the menu changes with what’s available and the kitchen knows when to let ingredients speak. Come in chestnut season and order the pasta with chestnuts and Bra sausage. Bra is a small town in the Langhe and its sausage, made from raw veal and pork with no preservatives, is one of the great Piemontese ingredients. With chestnuts it becomes something genuinely special. We still talk about it. The rest of the menu is just as good.
Seafood
Turin is not a coastal city but it has a serious seafood culture, driven by the Ligurian influence from across the mountains. These two are the places to know.
1. La Medusa
📍 Piazza Alberto Pasini, 3 (Sassi)
Our favourite. La Medusa sits in the Sassi neighbourhood at the foot of the hills and has been drawing serious seafood lovers for years. The thing to order is the linguine in crosta: a full pan of linguine baked with mussels, clams and squid under a pizza crust that is pressed and sealed onto the baking sheet, so everything steams and concentrates inside. You break it at the table. Reviewers have called it “stratosferiche” and they are not wrong. Get there early or reserve.
more infohttps://www.lamedusa-restaurant.com/
2. L’Ancora
📍 Via della Rocca, 22b
An exclusively fish restaurant in Borgo Nuovo, a few doors from our apartment for six years. Elegant and refined without being precious about it. The steamed fish is impeccable, the tartare and carpaccio are consistently excellent and the wine list complements the food properly. Closed Mondays and Sundays. Rated 4.8 out of 5 across close to 2,000 reviews, which for a fish-only restaurant in a landlocked city tells you everything.
Pizza
1. Sestogusto
📍 Via Giuseppe Mazzini, 31
This is gourmet pizza taken to a genuinely serious level. Chef Massimiliano Prete has spent years researching dough, fermentation and the intersection of pizza-making with the pastry tradition. The result is a crust that is light, complex and unlike most pizza you will eat in Italy. Not cheap, but the quality justifies every cent. Reservations recommended.
2. Sorbillo
📍 Via Bruno Buozzi, 3
The Turin outpost of the legendary Naples institution, open since 1936. Proper Neapolitan pizza: wood-fired, soft-centred, San Marzano tomatoes and buffalo mozzarella. If you want the real thing without going to Naples, this is the place in Turin.
3. Pizza Ad Hoc
📍 Via Giovanni Plana, 7B
A Turin institution near Piazza Vittorio with a loyal local following. Ranked in the top 60 restaurants in the city on TripAdvisor, which for a pizza place is significant. The La Bella Rossina with local prosciutto and burrata is the one to order. Busy enough that a reservation is worth making.
Something Different
1. Tuttofabrodo
📍 Via S. Pio V, 8
Handmade xiaolongbao and ramen in the heart of the city. The word around Turin is that the founders brought artisans from Din Tai Fung in Hong Kong to set up the kitchen. The dumplings are the real thing: thin skins, savoury broth inside and made to order. Consistently packed. Go early or expect to wait.
2. Oh Crispa!
📍 Via Belfiore, 16bis/D (San Salvario)
Chinese street food done properly: XLO soup dumplings, gua bao, sheng jian bao and jian bing guo zi (Chinese crepes). The pork comes from a local Piemontese agrisalumeria, which gives it an unexpected regional twist. But the dan dan noodles are the thing. Silky, rich and genuinely spicy if you want them to be. You choose your heat level when you order. We always go to 7 out of 10 and it is properly spicy. Don’t let that put you off: the heat builds slowly and the flavour is worth every degree of it. Since we left, the team has opened a second restaurant called Lao. We haven’t been yet. It is on the list for the next visit.
3. Sushi Shizen
📍 Viale Enrico Thovez, 6
Our go-to sushi for six years, and one of the best Japanese restaurants in the city. Ranked in the top 250 restaurants in Turin out of over 5,000 and with good reason. Shizen takes the craft seriously: fresh fish, clean flavours and a menu that covers sushi, sashimi and noodles without trying to do too much. They delivered to us through COVID, which we will never forget.
4. Oinos
📍 Via della Rocca, 39/g
Around the corner from our apartment, which made it dangerously easy to visit often. Oinos does what they call “sushiliano”: Japanese technique applied to Italian and Mediterranean seafood. The fish comes from Mazara del Vallo and Sardinia, the flavours from Sicily and Liguria and the craft from Japan. A nigiri with Mazara del Vallo red prawns, basil and extra virgin olive oil sounds like it shouldn’t work and is extraordinary. The house dipping oil, freshly pressed green olive oil paired with soy instead of the standard soy alone, changes the way you eat sushi. Open since 2012 and still one of the most interesting restaurants in Turin.
5. El Beso
📍 Via Bernardino Galliari, 22 (San Salvario)
The best Mexican restaurant in Turin and the first place in Europe where we found a proper michelada. We first came here on a scouting trip before we even moved and it became a regular. The tortillas are made in-house, the salsas are made in-house and everything is run by Mexican staff using recipes and ingredients from home. The micheladas come in several versions: la Chelada, la Cubana, la Mangoyada with mango and chamoy. They are the real thing. The food holds up too: not California Mexican, but genuinely good.
A word of warning. When we first moved to Turin, full of optimism about our Italian, we tried another Mexican place in the city. Dylan ordered a fragola burrito instead of a fagiolo burrito. Strawberry instead of bean. The kitchen, either very kind or very amused, served it. We did not go back. Go to El Beso.
Coffee, Pastries and the Bicerin Ritual
Turin has a café culture built for lingering. These are not grab-and-go places. Budget time for them.
1. Caffè Al Bicerin dal 1763
📍 Piazza della Consolata, 5
The original. Open since 1763 in a tiny room on Piazza della Consolata, this is where the bicerin was invented and where it is still made to the same recipe: layered espresso, drinking chocolate and whole cream in a small glass. Cavour and Nietzsche were regulars. The marble tables, mirrored walls and candlelight have barely changed. Sit down, take your time and order the bicerin. This was the first place we ever had one and it set the standard for everything that followed. Also order the Nutella toast. It is an unreasonable amount of sugar for 10am and completely worth it.
2. Caffè Baratti & Milano
📍 Piazza Castello, 27
One of the most beautiful café interiors in Italy. Polished dark wood, brass fittings, glass cases full of chocolates and pastries. We took everyone who came to visit us here, without exception. The bicerin is excellent and so are the sandwiches. But the chocolates are the thing to take home: we carried boxes back to family and friends more times than we can count. The gianduiotto is the one to get.
3. Caffè Mulassano
📍 Piazza Castello, 15
Art nouveau interior from 1907, mirrored walls, coffered ceilings and marble tabletops. This is allegedly where the tramezzino sandwich was invented, and they still make them well. Also one of the best spots in Turin to have a vermouth: they serve a house vermouth with a plate of snacks for €8. Historic and genuine.
4. Farmacia del Cambio
📍 Piazza Carignano, 2
The café and pastry arm of the Del Cambio group. Exceptional pastries, serious coffee and one of the nicest piazzas in the city to sit on. Non-negotiable. Get there early. There is reliably a queue by mid-morning.
5. Orso Laboratorio Caffè
📍 Via Rattazzi, 13
The best specialty coffee shop in Turin. We found it while shopping at the Mercato di Piazza Madama Cristina, which is one of the best food markets in the city and worth a Saturday morning on its own. Single-origin beans, skilled baristas and a relaxed atmosphere. One of the better specialty coffee shops in Europe.
Gelato
The dairy in Piemonte is genuinely exceptional and it shows in the gelato. The best we have eaten anywhere in Italy has been in Turin.
A word of warning before you go: among our Torinese friends, the gelato question is not casual. There are two camps, the La Romana camp and the Alberto Marchetti camp, and people have opinions. Lisa and Dylan are firmly Marchetti. I preferred Romana. We never resolved it. Go to both and decide for yourself.
1. Gelateria La Romana
Multiple locations
Gambero Rosso Three Cones, one of the highest distinctions in Italian gelato. Consistently the most crowded gelateria in the city. The milk comes from Piemontese farms and the hazelnut and seasonal fruit flavours reflect the region. This is where I stood.
2. Alberto Marchetti
📍 Via Po, 35/B (also Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, 24bis)
Another award-winner, strict about sourcing: fresh milk from Piemontese valleys, Gobino chocolate and hazelnuts from the Langhe. The hazelnut gelato here is the standard against which you judge all other hazelnut gelato in the city. This is where Lisa and Dylan stood. They were very sure about it.
3. Caffè-Gelateria Pepino
📍 Piazza Carignano, 8
Open since 1884. Famous for the gelato and for the Pinguino, the world’s first chocolate-covered gelato on a stick, invented here in 1939. One of Turin’s listed historic cafés, steps from Del Cambio.
4. Mara dei Boschi
📍 Piazza Carlo Emanuele II, 16
Great gelato alongside good coffee using beans from their own roastery, Ialty. Many dairy-free and vegan options. Excellent staff and a lovely piazza setting.
5. La Fattoria del Gelato
📍 Via Grange, 44, Pianezza (outside Turin, you need a car)
One of those places you only find by actually living somewhere. La Fattoria del Gelato is an agrigelateria on a working farm in Pianezza, about 10km outside the city. The gelato is made from the farm’s own milk and the cows are there when the season is right, in summer they go up to the mountains, so your visit depends on the time of year. When you can see the animals and then eat the gelato made from their milk twenty minutes later, something clicks about why Piemontese dairy products are what they are. Take the kids if you have them. Go on a Sunday afternoon. Worth the drive.
Aperitivo, Vermouth and Cocktails
Turin invented vermouth in 1786, which means it essentially invented the aperitivo. The ritual is serious here. Around 6pm, bars fill up, drinks arrive with food at no extra cost and the evening begins in the most civilised way imaginable.
1. Pepe
📍 Via della Rocca, 19 (Piazza Maria Teresa)
Our neighbourhood bar for six years and still the first place we go every time we come back. Pepe sits on the corner overlooking Piazza Maria Teresa, one of the most pleasant squares in the city, and does everything well: the best cappuccino in the neighbourhood in the morning, a genuinely good aperitivo in the evening and outdoor seating under the trees from spring to late autumn. It has the slightly French feel of a bar that knows exactly what it is and has no desire to be anything else. Open daily from 8am through to late.
2. La Drogheria
📍 Piazza Vittorio Veneto, 18
A Turin institution since 2002. Seven bartenders working a list of cocktails built around homemade liqueurs and bitters. In summer the windows open onto Piazza Vittorio Veneto, which might be the most beautiful piazza in the city. The best overall cocktail bar in Turin, in our view, and a place we came back to again and again.
3. Banco Vini e Alimenti
📍 Via Giovanni Botero, 11F
The wine bar offshoot of the acclaimed Consorzio restaurant. Walk-ins only, no reservations, open evenings Tuesday to Saturday. One of the best wine lists in the city for understanding Piemontese producers: Barolo, Barbaresco, Dolcetto and natural wines from across Italy. No kitchen but excellent small plates: anchovies with whipped butter, quality salumi and cheese. One of the genuinely great wine bars in Italy.
4. Affini
📍 San Salvario
One of the best newer cocktail bars in Turin. Head bartender Michele Marzella has built a cocktail list around an exceptional collection of vermouth and high-quality spirits, with serious tapas to accompany. An excellent choice in San Salvario for aperitivo before dinner.
5. Bar Cavour
📍 Piazza Carignano, 2
Part of the Del Cambio group and situated above the restaurant. The same elevated aesthetic at cocktail bar prices. Great drinks and one of the better settings in the centre for an evening drink.
A Few Final Thoughts
Turin rewards the people who slow down. The food culture here is not built around spectacle. It is built around quality, tradition and the pleasure of eating well without making a fuss about it. Some of our best meals over six years were in trattorie with laminated menus. Some were standing at a bar with a bicerin at 9am. Some were a cone of gelato by the Po at dusk.
More people are discovering Turin now: for a weekend, a longer stay or as somewhere to put down roots. The cost of living compared to Milan or Rome is excellent and once you have been, you will understand why people who move here rarely leave.
Come hungry. Eat the plin.
