For a Michelin one-star establishment, La Ciau del Tornavento packs a punch. The restaurant sits on a hilltop in the town of Treiso in Piedmont with the dining room opening up onto a fantastic view of the vine laden slopes and valley below. The cuisine takes Piedmont’s traditional dishes up a notch – largely recognisable, nothing foamy here. But best of all it has the most impressive wine collection I’ve ever seen with its cellar holding more than 38,000 bottles.

We came here on our last night in Piedmont – we hadn’t planned on hitting any fine dining places but La Ciau was enthusiastically recommended by a friend. We are glad we came. The wine cellar itself is a treat to visit. Walking down to the cellar, we were met with cleanly stacked, floor to ceiling rows of wine bottles. These are mainly barolos, barbarescos and other Piedmont wines.

Moving deeper into other areas of the cellar is like going into Aladdin’s cave. It culminates in a vaulted room filled with famous names – including several bottles of Domaine Romanee Conti, Petrus and Chateau Yquem. La Ciau’s chef and owner Maurilio Garola half jokes that all his savings have gone into the wines. It’s an extremely illustrious, and delicious, piggy bank.

With such a well stocked cellar, it’s no wonder that the restaurant’s wine list is a joy to discover. It’s sometimes not easy to find wines of older vintages in Europe’s restaurants since the locals drink their wines relatively young. This was not an issue at La Ciau.

There are also affordable rarities and we stuck to local wines to accompany our meal. These included a Vigneti Massa Derthona Sterpi 2010, made from the lesser known Timorasso grape. We also enjoyed a nice sparkling pinot noir and chardonnay blend from Contratto Millesimato (Extra Brut 2010). Our red was a Barbaresco Riserva Ovello 2009 and we closed with a La Spinetta Moscato d’Asti Biancospino. I also noted that the prices for the wine, even the higher end Gaja bottles, were relatively reasonable.

Turning to the food

We ordered the degustation menu, which La Ciau calls the Destination Menu. It comprises six courses, which are determined by the day’s freshly available ingredients. While we weren’t ravenous, we felt that the degustation would give us the best feel for La Ciau’s food. And since it was just six courses, it would be manageable. Naturally, while there are six courses, there were a couple of fillers in between. In the end, we were so full we just couldn’t manage the cheese trolley, which I really wanted to try.

The meal started with roasted pepper stuffed with rabbit accompanied by an anchovy sauce. I’m not a big fan of anchovy so I was relieved that the sauce was largely on the side and not overwhelming. The pepper and rabbit itself was good, with the pepper having been skinned and nicely sweet.

More fillers – a platter of four different types of goodies. Rabbit must have been on the menu as on the plate were fried rabbit “drumsticks” and rabbit liver profiterole along with fried zucchini flower and a squid inked cod (bacalao) croquette.

Our second course, which I particularly enjoyed. The squid was marinated in beetroot juice and accompanied by a cream made from Ligurian pigna beans. The squid was cooked just right, not rubbery and super tender. Candied lemon and “black cappucino” were the additional flavour enhancers.

A La Ciau signature dish is the hazelnut coated San Remo prawn – finger lickin’ good. This was probably another filler.

Our next dish was the veal carpaccio, which was served with burrata, tomato and hazelnut oil.

My non-beef eating friend was served another signature dish – a plate of frog drumsticks dressed with parsley, anchovy, garlic and egg yolk.

Next came the more substantive courses. Asparagus, in this dish, is bathed in a goat, sheep and veal milk reduction and topped with quail egg and black truffle.

This was followed by another house specialty – La Ciau’s variation on plin (a ravioli typical of Piedmont), which they call Plin de Seirass. This was ricotta filled ravioli cooked in hay water. The hay gave the ravioli a nice, almost smoked flavour.

The final course was a half quail, roasted and stuffed with foie gras and herbs. By this time we were so stuffed that we couldn’t even order dessert. A compromise was the hay sorbet (not pictured), which was pleasant in that it was light but could be described as vanilla infused with the smoked hay. Almost like a mild caramel.

I couldn’t touch the Petits Fours in the end but my table mates seemed to enjoy it.

I think one of the nice touches at La Ciau was the personal presence of Mr. Garola and his wife Nadia Benech, who were quick to answer all our questions about the food. They were both very hands-on, assisting the wait-staff if needed. This made the restaurant feel more like a traditional family run establishment and less of a celebrity chef temple.

All in, the meal cost less than EUR120 per person – we didn’t order super expensive wines. It was a very satisfying meal and the relatively friendly pricing will entice me to return. There were a number of dishes on the a la carte menu I’d like to come back for including the cheese trolley. They do a Piedmont beef T-bone steak, which must be good given the tenderness of the meat. That, accompanied with a nice elegant barolo, of course.

Contact La Ciau through their website (largely in Italian, with some English): www.laciaudeltornavento.it