44. Practical Guide: Turin

Where to eat, drink, walk, and spend slow days in the city

Practical Travel Notes for Turin in April

A collection of practical notes from a few days in Turin in April.

Not a comprehensive guide, just the places I ate, drank, wandered into, and quietly kept returning to while moving through the city alone.

Cafés, bars, pastry shops, and small observations that might be useful if you’re passing through, or if, like me, you prefer learning a city by eating your way through it.

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Where to Eat and Drink

Coffee

• Drinking coffee at the bar is the best place to get a quick, inexpensive hit of caffeine, and also how the locals do it.

  I went to Caffè Torino a few times to try different offerings. A cappuccino is only €2.00 when taken at the bar.

• If you want to try the famous bicerin – a layered drink of espresso, chocolate ganache and frothy cream – you need to go to its birthplace, Caffè al Bicerin. Ravin (the stranger from the bench) told me you only need to try it once.

• Caffè Mulassano and Caffè Elena are both excellent spots for people watching. Elena also serves its own house amaro.

Aperitivo

• Tucked inside Parco del Valentino, Imbarchino is a lively riverside bar filled with students, gossip, and cheap drinks, all overlooking the rowers on the water. A lovely aperitivo stop before dinner.

• Banco Vini e Aperitivo and ISOLA are modern spots that are trendier and noticeably more expensive than the classic cafés.