- Written by: Mona Biedrzycka
A Dish That Stops You Mid-Thought
I didn’t know what to do with it. That plate of leaves. Fifty-something shades of green and gold, none repeating, nor competing. No anchoring protein. The dressing was hidden at the bottom of the bowl, waiting to be discovered. Just plants. And a startling sense of intent.
It didn’t flirt or explain. Each bite - slightly bitter, then sweet, then cooling - felt like a sentence fragment from a language I couldn’t quite translate. It was about seasonality. But more so, about timing. And honestly, it was too much. Not in complexity - in quantity. A full fist of foliage, served before anything else had a chance to warm up my appetite. Fortunately, I had Minta next to me: a known herbivore, a friend, and today, a willing co-conspirator in leaf redistribution.
The Garden That Rewrites Itself
A few courses later, we were shown the garden. Not metaphorically but physically. Just a drive, ten minutes out, and the quiet certainty of rows and rhythm. The harvest occurs by what's at its very height. Greens are picked three times a day, just before service, at their top best.
Everything in the kitchen answers to this rhythm. Crippa isn’t chasing seasons. He’s chasing the exact moment when flavour becomes expression, when a flower or herb hits not just peak ripeness or top scent, but narrative force.
Which is why, thinking back, the salad that might have felt excessive was rather inevitable. As if to say: here is your entry point, your calibration tool, your contract with the kitchen. Not a warm-up. A decision. Eat this, or don’t bother reading the rest.
After the Plates, the Soil
It was just after lunch, around 4 p.m. The dining room had quieted. We were no longer guests but passengers, following Crippa and the restaurant’s owner into a quiet car heading ten minutes outside of Alba.
The man behind the wheel was not just a restaurateur, he is Federico Ceretto, the quiet architect behind Piazza Duomo’s endurance. As one of the Ceretto brothers, he is part of a family whose legacy is woven into the fabric of the region: in wine, in art, and in the land. The Cerettos founded Piazza Duomo in 2005 with a vision of rooting fine dining in Langhe's terroir, without turning it into a performance. Crippa was the chef they trusted to do it.
That trust, two decades later, is still visible in their dynamic. Where most chef-owner relationships fray or fade, this one seems to deepen. You see it in the pace of the restaurant, in the steadiness of the room. There’s no power play, just alignment.
The garden wasn’t what I expected. It was more methodical than romantic... I guess I expected something wild, something expressive - but this garden felt more like a lab. And I realised that, here, beauty begins in the grid.
He showed us the microplots and timelines. Explained the crop rhythms. There was nothing whimsical here. No storybook garden. What they grow is governed by demand, light, and purpose. Andrea Mastropietro, head of Piazza Duomo’s vegetable garden team, didn’t speak in metaphors. He spoke in pH, humidity, daylight windows, and flavour lifespan.
And yet, the creativity was unmistakable. In that hot air, after so many dishes, it struck me just how far this restaurant extends beyond its walls. That garden is more than just a source. Enrico describes it as an agricultural project with a creative purpose to amaze guests with innovative recipes in elegant colours.
The Dark Side of the Moon
The dish appears as an abstract canvas - dark, layered, quiet in colour but complicated in construction. The centre: a black jelly made from tomato water, layered with sepia and sturgeon caviar. Beneath it, a walnut cream and celeriac so subtle it barely registers until the fourth bite. Around the circumference: a circle of dried caviar.
There is no direct path through it. No central bite. It’s not theatre, but it is an experience. You try to understand where the centre of gravity is and realise the point is not to find it. It’s a dish that doesn’t finish with flavour but with tension.
Kiefer in the Kitchen
It arrives like a painting turned edible. It looks like Anselm Kiefer on porcelain - bold, scorched, ashy. Ink powder from cuttlefish rains across the plate, resting on alternating layers of cardoon and anchovy cream. The supporting veil of sepia is so thin, it’s more presence than substance.
There is no garnish. No sweetener. No escape hatch for guests who don’t like anchovies. And still, it’s magnetic. I hesitated to ruin it. It felt like trespassing on something already complete.
A Risotto That Slips in Softly
I’ve had risottos that shout with truffle. That drip in saffron. That swell with umami. This one - didn’t. It glowed like a flan, smelled faintly of smoke, and arrived without fanfare. And still, it caught me off guard.
Inside: Parmigiano, just enough to carry the rice without swallowing it. A touch of pancetta for grounding. Rooibos and orange reduction that whispered at the edges - not as flavour bombs, but as lift. There was creaminess, yes, but also acidity. Warmth, but also distance. It didn’t read like a main course. It read like a resolution. This was, in the end, one of my favourite dishes. Because it calmed.
It’s tempting to think of Crippa’s menu as a crescendo. It’s not. It’s choreography. And this risotto - warm, minimal, creamy, slightly sweet, slightly bitter - is how it exits the stage.
After dessert and coffee, we were invited to Studio+, the restaurant’s new chef’s table. I almost wished we had dined there - but instead, I exchanged a few words with the team from Paris’s Table by Bruno Verjus, who were preparing for a night of collaboration.
Next came the wine cellar: a dreamscape lined with the rarest Barolos you could name or imagine. We lingered in the lounge - or listening room, if you will - for a quiet conversation with Crippa. Just an honest moment of sharing thoughts. Watching him laugh with his sommeliers, seeing the ease between them, added another layer to everything we’d just eaten.
Standing across from Crippa in the lounge, I couldn’t help but think how rare it is to see a chef less interested in being visible and famous than in being present in his restaurant, his garden and offering the best of himself to his guests.
The Voices Around Him
Enrico Crippa is a chef whom other chefs reference but rarely imitate. His name surfaces in conversations about plating, about restraint, about discipline. But there’s a quiet agreement: replicating what he does is nearly impossible without replicating the entire system around it.
His dishes don’t beg to be photographed. They resist summary. Some chefs admire that. Others find it aloof. “Crippa’s food is for those who already speak the language,” one food journalist told me. Not because it’s elite, but because it’s deeply internal.
A Language More Than a Menu
There must be something very Italian about it - this closeness to art. The way it lives not just in museums, but in gestures, in dishes. Alajmo, Bottura, Uliassi, Crippa: four chefs whose work is shaped by the gravity of paintings, who draw from sculpture, architecture, and abstraction. Who do not borrow the look of art, but its discipline. For them, the plate is a structure. A decision. A form of attention.
Piazza Duomo is more than a shift in the conversation. It’s trying to say: this is what happens when attention outruns ambition. When precision becomes presence. When food stops telling stories and starts making grammar.
But this kind of excellence isn’t a solo act. It’s a system - one tuned, rehearsed, and held together by a team that always listens and acts in sync.
Crippa’s food holds back. It avoids the arcs and crescendos most menus rely on. It just stays - composed, restrained, demanding more of your attention than your appetite. Somewhere between bites, it begins to clarify its own logic.
PIAZZA DUOMO
Address: Piazza Risorgimento, 4, 12051 Alba CN, Italy
Telephone: +390173366167
Table BookingPiazza Duomo WebsiteOpening Times: Wed - Sat, 12:30–23:30
AWARDS:
3 Michelin stars, Green star 2025
World 50 Best Restaurants - No.32
Best Chef - 3 Knives
Gambero Rosso - 97/100
OAD TOP Europe Restaurants - No. 22
Photos: Piazza Duomo, if not mentioned otherwise.
