Gourmets will enjoy our regional dishes and wines!
Different areas so different from each other, too... the lake, the plain and the mountain, our regional food can be devided into three groups:
The plain food is tipically from Piedmont, stricktly linked with the land and its fruits, such as rice, protagonist of many recipes of risotto and the famous "Paniscia" novarese. And also the meat, stewed or
roasted, the game, theBagna Cauda, served with season vegetables, without forgetting other main courses such
as Agnolotti del Plin, Brasato al Barolo or Fritto Misto alla
Piemontese.
The lake area food is mainly based on simple and delicate dishes of fish: perch, symbol of the lake, served
in fillet or main ingredient of risotto; bleaks, fried or soused, but also
the pike, the lake trout and the whitefish, especially soused and served
cold as required by the ancient recipe.
Finally the mountain food, with its strong flavours: le classic polenta served with sausages and
tomato sauce, rabbit meat, milk, toma cheese or mushrooms. On chopping boards you will
find sausages, pancetta, bresaola, mortadella ossolana, lardo alle erbe di Macugnaga,
ham and violino di capra from Vigezzo
Valley.
The whole area around Lake Maggiore and the valleys in
the nearby are well-known for the production of cheese: Gorgonzola D.O.P., Bettelmatt, Ossolano d'Alpe, Latteria di Crodo, Toma del Mottarone and then many goats’ and ricotta cheeses from mountains huts or dairies in the valleys.
Over the most famous wines of Piedmont, such as Barolo, Barbaresco, Dolcetto and Barbera, this area offers flavoured wines, appropriate the regional food: Ghemme,Gattinara, and many others.
Honey is another specialty of the area around Lake Maggiore. Thanks to the geographical
position the vegetation is very assorted and the honey production, too:chestnut, locust tree, acacia, linden, rhododendron, the honeydew, the mixed flowers and the mixed mountain
flowers.