2025 chocolate year

In 2024, Turin Epicurean Capital turned 10 🎆 and we feel very privileged to have grown so much thanks to you who keep supporting us online and in real life 🙏 

May 2025 be a very productive and positive year for you all, as for us in Turin it set to be the year of chocolate 🎇

Get ready and budget at least 5 days here because they will be packed with museums, concerts, shops, food and wine, you will still leave craving to come back for more 😍

Piazza Castello

In Italy, the Holidays officially end on January 6th when la Befana delivers her stockings full of sweets or (pricy sugar) coal to the naughty kids. In the Italian Silicon Valley located in Ivrea that's when the celebrations for Carnival or Mardi Gras season start. 

And in Turin, CioccolaTO aka our chocoTorino fest will also take place all around downtown from February 27th to March 2nd, thus allowing you to also take part in the Carnival funeral in Ivrea on Mardi Gras, on March 4th!

a sea of gold wrapped gianduiotti

As we are posting, the 2025 edition of CioccolaTO is still in the making but we already know its program will be new and rich compared to the past! In fact, besides the stalls selling chocolate specialties (traditional, new and fusion), there will also be exhibits, workshops, tastings, presentations and new events to network. 

It won't be just a feast for chocoholics but also a B2B event for all the chocolate pros and chocolate companies of any size. The locations will be spread out all around downtown from Piazza Vittorio - the largest open square in Europe - and in some downtown museums and palazzos. 

CioccolaTO wants to invite the whole world of choco lovers and chocolate professionals over to Turin to enjoy our chocolate AND to share how our local food and wine traditions pair perfectly with chocolate, a key ingredient in Piedmont since the late 1600s!

No wonder Turin has been the official chocolate supplier to the European royal courts since the 18th century!

Turin's wider region, Piedmont produces 40 % of the Italian chocolate and the Turin area counts 52 chocolate factories - 6 at least open to the public. Customarily we give family, friends and clients boxes of chocolates and pralines, and naturally, such boxes are often collectibles with great art!

Nutella was also born right here in 1946 and many artisan versions are produced virtually by any Turin chocolate master. Strolling around Turin it is quite normal to stumble on artisan chocolates and pralines pretty much everywhere: in cafés, pastry shops and chocolate boutiques.

Mark up your calendars for cioccolaTO 2025 but remember that in Turin, artisan chocolate is our way of life and Easter means the largest choco eggs you have ever seen!

our small chocolate Easter eggs are 40cm / 16in tall

If the quality of shops, the size of stores and the number of theaters and bookshops can tell you a lot about a city and its people, then the many artisan chocolate shops around town will reveal even more about our priorities and values in Turin.

To share our epicurean lifestyle, and specifically our local love for chocolate we have designed a chocolate tour so you amici can stock up on some samples and taste test our glorious hot chocolate(s). 

Forget about any big brand that comes to your mind!! Hot chocolate in Turin is as dense and velvety as ganache - yes, like a melted chocolate tablet! 

In the cold months we love it with a generous dollop of whipped cream either on the side or served on top; and in the summer, we enjoy it cold - a real treat all chocoholics should try!

Naturally, our Alpine pastures provide us with the best fresh milk and cream and here in Turin, from spring to fall, you can enjoy at least 6 different chocolate artisan gelato flavors!

In Turin we enjoy gelato all year long

Even though there is no artisan chocolate production when temperatures are above 18C / 64.4F and chocolate factories are closed to the public during the 40 days before Easter, there is plenty of chocolate in Turin to enjoy all year long!

Channel your best Willy Wonka and book a chocolate tour of Turin with us, pair it with a chocolate factory tour and tasting and why not? 

Do it like our Turinepi18 guests and have a cooking class where cocoa is the protagonist of the dishes you'll savor at the end!

And finally, yes, Turin has also a chocolate museum and if you are a coffee lover, you just can't miss out on bicerin: our staple coffee drink that includes chocolate too, of course. A great souvenir from Turin is the liqueur version of bicerin usually sold in a glass bottle shaped like the Turin symbol building: Mole Antonelliana!

Follow the scent amici, let chocolate allure you to Turin and start checking your flights to ✈ TRN

📧 Email Lucia: turinepi@gmail.com for your private tours, tastings and private classes, to schedule a consultation session or our concierge services.

Wait no longer, Turin is waiting for you 🎉

the Roman lanes of Turin

Lidia Poët tours

Many are the perks of living in Turin and many are the brands founded here and famous all over the world. Turin also holds many records as well as many interesting people who changed Italy and the world.

If you subscribe to Netflix, after Astrological Guide For Broken Hearts,  you can now enjoy season 2 of another series set and filmed in Turin - a real love letter to the city: The Law of Lidia Poët about the very first lady lawyer of Europe!

Season 1

Panna cotta = Piedmont

P = Piedmont panna cotta

a traditional registered recipe since 2001

Let's be real... who doesn't like panna cotta?? Simple and versatile, it's a world wide people pleaser from Piedmont!

Panna cotta literally means cooked cream, and we mean heavy whipping cream. This is because according to the registered traditional recipe here in Piedmont, NW Italy, you make it by cooking heavy whipping cream with sugar, vanilla or a citrus peel, and by adding gelatin. This is the very basic recipe you can serve with fresh fruit, coulis, natural syrups, chocolate and / or coffee sauce. 

Keep reading for our recipe.

Different versions of panna cotta have been around in Europe since at the very least 1244 when Henrik Harpestræg, a Danish doctor who had studied in Sicily, included in one of his books moos hwit - a dessert almost identical to panna cotta.

Even though, up to the 1960s there is no mention of panna cotta in the Italian cookbooks, legend has it that we owe it to a Hungarian lady who in the early 1900s had moved to the Langhe wine district (Unesco World Heritage Site) here in Piedmont.

L' estampe art gallery

Today we get to know Emanuele Cardellino founder and owner of L'Estampe art gallery in Via dei Mercanti 3G, in the heart of the Roman Lanes of Turin!

the chocolate museum

After many long years of wishing and praying, soft whispering and hoping, the Turin chocolate museum finally opened and with Alex Futter - a long time friend - we went to take a look for you!

Bridgerton vibes at the chocolate museum too

late June in Turin

June in Turin is one of the top  months to visit because you, amici from out of town, can enjoy our fully working city when some of the locals have already left for the summer!

the fruit you can buy at our market at the end of June

May in Turin

 ... and in the blink of an eye it's almost summer even though in Turin and Piedmont these days it's still pretty rainy and we are still wearing sweaters and jackets. 

To understand what May does mean in Turin you will need a market our. Lucky us here, we have a daily market in every neighborhood except for Sunday. According to what you'll see on the stalls you'll know what we are cooking, eating and what to expect on our restaurant menus.

L'Erm orchard of wonders

Dearest gentle readers,

it's now been a long time since we last talked about the ton and our very own Piedmont Ms Sharma now Viscountess Bridgerton 👇

Olivetti the Italian Silicon Valley

If we were to ask you what Martini, Lavazza and FIAT have in common, what would you answer? And if we asked you how they are connected to Bialetti, Alessi, Zegna and Ferrero - think nutella and Ferrero Rocher?

Easy: Turin capital of Piedmont! 

Now imagine a company vision where the wellbeing of the workers directly translates into the highest productivity and revenues for the company itself, and you have the framework of most of our Piedmont companies and brands. 

The most famous and renowned Italian brands and symbols in the world originated by small family owned companies here in Piedmont. Martini in the late 1700s, FIAT in the late 1800s, Lavazza, Bialetti, Alessi and Ferrero in the early to mid 1900s. And their products are the results of the creativity of the company founders and their descendants.

The bear, the bulls and the wine fair

As the 3rd season of The Bear has just been confirmed and as the 2nd one has just won a ton of Golden Globes we want to share with you why this iconic TV series - a must-see for all food-lovers is actually also a portrait of Turin and basically how Chicago and Turin are so similar in their polar opposite identity.

La Farmacia Del Cambio, Turin

2024 Turin travel FAQs

Happy New Year from Turin, amici 🎊 2024 is an 8 year (2+2+4) meaning: the infinite and whether Turin is already in your plans or not, well... we do hope to see you here to experience our infinite cool things 😎

Via Po near the University of Turin since 1404