Osteria Bell'e Buona

The Heart of Cocconato's Table

Beloved by locals and discovered quietly by visitors who tend to keep coming back — Osteria Bell'e Buona is a village osteria in Cocconato's historic centre with handmade tajarin, vitello tonnato made the way it should be, and generous antipasti misti that have a habit of becoming the entire meal before the pasta arrives. The tajarin — the almost-impossibly thin egg pasta of Piemonte, made with a proportion of yolks that would alarm most pasta makers elsewhere — is the dish to order if you order nothing else.

The room is warm, the welcome genuine, and the wine list is firmly and unapologetically local: Barbera d'Asti and Grignolino from producers within a few kilometres, poured at the kind of prices that make the bill a mild surprise in the right direction. This is one of our most reliable recommendations in Cocconato, and the place we find ourselves returning to most often when guests ask where to go for lunch without any particular plan.