Osteria Battaglino — Restaurant in Dogliani

The question that lingered was: ”is it really worth it?” Outside in the cold december air we gazed at the menu, which seemed reasonably priced and traditional. Despite the odor of fresh Tabasco (like people had been smoking indoors) and the emptiness of the restaurant we decided to give it a try, relieved to find something open on a Monday. We sat down on the plastic chairs in an eclectic space situated between Pinocchio paintings, Christmas decoration, pictures of Piedmontese characters and clownesk ceramic sculptures where we were formally served by a friendly English speaking waitress and all seemed well, until the truffle shavings flew over our plates. White truffle servings go for 30 or 50 euro’s supplement per plate; one on a fried egg the other on cardoon, while we said “just a little” and “thank you” trying to indicate a stop at the 30. I jokingly said to my love, “we better enjoy this because it is going to cost us.” Honestly, the smell of the white truffle was lovely, like an umami blossom, but the taste was very subtle, in the sense that you don’t taste so much. To put this story into context; We are both mushroom foragers and growers. And to be frank we’ve had wild mushrooms that had more complexity and depth in taste than this truffle did. So I must say with grief that it was a bit of a disappointment. Moving on to the pasta which was clearly freshly made: soft textured and beautiful in taste; the tallarin roughly hand cut and the tortelli finely folded over their filling, YES the pasta was really delicious. Finely sharing our desert which said it had chocolate in three textures, consisting of a thick chocolate mouse, cacao nibs chocolate sauce, an unidentifiable orange purée and some cookie crumble which, I’m sorry to say, was blend both in taste and texture. At the end of the evening the receipt stated the full 50 euro supplement for each of our starters leaving us feeling naïf and even stupid, because we were to shy to ask further questions. This is not how I ideally leave a restaurant. Which leads me back to our first question; “is it really worth it?” Well, I’m sure in a while we shall recover from this, and laugh at that Monday evening in december where we paid too much for that truffle dinner. But that laugh will not make us return to this restaurant, nor...

The Osteria Battaglino is a lovely restaurant in which to enjoy a well-prepared meal. The ambience is a pretty mix of classic Italian architecture and furnishings with a contemporary twist. Clean, efficient and atmospheric; in the background music played, just loud enough to relax to. Even though we had a 50% discount, the staff were kind enough to give us a lounge, where we sat at a rather important-looking table. The waiters were particularly helpful and friendly. We had a limited amount of food to choose from, but what we did have was delicious. The taglierini were home-made, and as my Italian friend said “the best I’ve ever had”. I will certainly try to go back to choose something from...

The place is very pretty per se, although I think a warmer and lower lighting setting would work the ambience much better. The food is good, but I felt the whole proposal quite pretentious and not very well carried out: understaffed for sure for the amount of tables, not enough menus, slow slow service, unnecessarily long wine list and not so clearly specified ingredients in the dishes’ description. The prices are steep and not justified given the amount and quality of it all. They are trying though, they just need to organize the whole...