La Piola

La Piola is the osteria on the ground floor of the same building that houses Piazza Duomo. Opened in 2006 as a casual companion to Crippa's three-star, it shares the kitchen's sourcing — Ceretto's garden, the Langhe breeders, the same market — but operates in a completely different register.

The room is warm and deliberately unfussy. Wood-panelled walls, blackboard menus, a long zinc bar, tables packed close enough to hear the next conversation. It is the canteen of the Ceretto universe and the sibling that Piedmontese chefs from neighbouring restaurants actually book on their nights off.

The menu sticks to Langhe classics done precisely. Vitello tonnato with a creamy tuna sauce; hand-cut tajarin with butter and sage (white truffle between October and December at market supplement); agnolotti del plin in a roast-meat jus; a braised beef cheek with Barolo reduction. The wine list is a deep Piedmontese cellar — Barolo, Barbaresco, Nebbiolo, Dolcetto.

A full dinner with a shared starter, pasta, main and a bottle of something decent lands at €80–120 per head. It is the best-value serious meal in central Alba and a reliable team-dinner booking during truffle season when most other tables are impossible.

La Piola is the team-dinner that still feels like a proper night out. The osteria format absorbs a group of eight without ceremony; the menu is familiar enough that no one orders badly; the wine list is strong enough to make the evening feel real; and the cost per head is defensible. The adjacency to Piazza Duomo adds a quiet frisson — you are eating in the Ceretto system without spending three hundred euros.