Last updating: 13/06/2023
Via I. Peronetto, 8 - 10010
ChiaveranoTelephone: +39 0125798008
Fax: +39 0125798008
At the beginning of Bienca, at the point where the first houses interrupt the loneliness of the road up from Chiaverano, was an inn, strategically located on both sides: on the left was the stable for sheltering and changing the horses of those who traveled; on the right was the inn proper, with a large courtyard at the front; the old Edelweiss, better known as Ca' d' Prett ('Peretto House'), known throughout the Canavese area as a hilly place of refreshment and coolness, especially in the summertime, was taken over in 1949 by Angiolina Regruto Tomalino, an energetic lady from an outspoken Chiaveranese family, and her husband Pietro Curnis, an enterprising man from Bergamo who had done his military service in Piedmont. After twenty years in business, the Curnis couple, assisted by their son Luciano, left La Stella Alpina to open La Tettoia, a much larger restaurant located exactly in the center of Bienca, in 1969; Luciano, whose work was joined by his wife Ivana from 1974, headed the kitchen until his untimely death in 1994. After becoming part of the "Associazione Ristoranti della Tradizione Canavesana," which aims to recover the dishes of the past and to enhance the gastronomic heritage of the area, even today, more than 45 years after its founding, La Tettoia is still run by the Curnis family, with Ivana and her daughter Valentina at the helm. The dishes most closely linked to local traditions that La Tettoia offers are the Sweet Stuffed Onions of Bienca, Piedmont-style Mixed Fritto misto, Vianda (a soup of milk, rice, and chestnuts), and Zuppa di ajucche (an exclusively Canavese woodland herb that sprouts between April and May).
THE COOK: Typical Canavese cuisine offers numerous appetizers, first and second course dishes, delicate and appetizing desserts.
Appetizers. Among the most typical bases of local hors d'oeuvres are, for example, fondue and bagna caoda: La Tettoia reproposes both very often (especially between autumn and spring), combining them with puff pastry pies, vegetable flans, and vol au vent. The old families of Bienca and Chiaverano have handed down two peasant recipes, capunet (cabbage cabbage rolls) and sweet stuffed onions, which housewives once prepared at home and then took to the baker's oven to bake; the baking took place after the bread had been baked, with the residual heat from the oven. La Tettoia has made sweet stuffed onions its workhorse, repurposing the same old-fashioned ingredients and respecting the prolonged low-temperature cooking; this process allows the contrasting flavors of onion, sweet amaretto, Parmesan, raisins, stale bread and eggs to blend together for a truly original-tasting appetizer.
Secondi. Piedmont-style mixed fried food certainly needs no introduction; at Tettoia we make it with special attention to the quality of the breading and batters, so that each food remains dry and crispy, without having absorbed too much oil. Above all, we pay attention to the excellent quality of the olive oil, so that the mixed fry is light and digestible. We usually offer a fritto misto consisting of seven sweet and seven savory items, but the Piccolo fritto misto (a shortened version of the previous one) and the Fritto misto giovane are also popular and in demand.
TYPE OF CUISINE: Seasonal cuisine - Piedmont - Italian
TYPE: Restaurant
LANGUAGES SPOKEN: SPANISH - FRENCH - ENGLISH