Saturday Market in Alba
The main market day in Alba is on Saturday morning when streets are filled with colorful stalls and a happy vibe runs throughout town!
The Saturday market in Alba combines traditional and local produce with everyday items and inexpensive clothing attracting tourists and local people.
Alba is a charming town where many tours of Meet Piemonte Tour Operator either stops for a few hours or stay overnight, like our 6-day Food & Wine Tour in Piedmont and the 9-day Lake Como, Piedmont & Portofino Tour.
The market day is the ideal background for the Alba Food Tour, where throughout the narration of ingredients and recipes, a full presentation of the region is provided and the equivalent of a light lunch is served with tastings set in food stores, small restaurants, and pastry shops across town.
Alba and the Market Perceived by the Locals
Market day in Alba has always been a gathering opportunity for the inhabitants of the surrounding Langhe and Roero Hills. An anticipated social event for escaping the isolated countryside life and for contracting deals, such as the exchange of products not available in the remote villages.
Although the Saturday market is not the largest in Piedmont, and Alba itself is not the administrative capital of the province, for locals the town was perceived in the past as a metropolis, in particular by the eyes of poor farmers attending the market.
Such social dynamics were brought to life by local writer Beppe Fenoglio, who set many of his novels in his hometown, Alba. In La Malora, he depicted rural life and tenant farming centered around market day in Alba.
Market Day in Alba: Streets and Squares
The Saturday market in Alba stretches out along the main streets and squares of the historic town center. Stalls are set from 6.30 am and begin to wrap up after 1 pm. There are about 200 vendors of which 60 are food sellers.
The market includes Via Maestra (officially via Vittorio Emanuele II), via Cavour, piazza del Duomo (the square of the Cathedral, aka Piazza Risorgimento), piazza Elvio Pertinace. Furthermore, in Piazza Prunotto and Piazza Marconi there are urban sheds, originally conceived for the livestock exhibition and today used for the food market.
Alba High Street: Via Maestra
Via Vittorio Emanuele II, locally known as Via Maestra, corresponds to one of the ancient axes of the Roman city grid. Nowadays, it is the main pedestrian street where people enjoy shopping and locals gather for a Saturday afternoon stroll.
The surrounding medieval buildings, towers, precious terracotta decorations on walls, and the baroque church named La Maddalena, frame the pleasant walking passageway.
With the help of a local guide in our tour of Alba and Underground , one can spot one of the oldest medieval towers of Alba, elevated in stones and still visible. The structure has been lowered to the height of the surrounding buildings to avoid collapsing in the past centuries.
Some pastry shops and cafes preserve the wooden frames, decorations, and original signs that embellish shop windows. These XIX century or early 1900s stores are adorned with mirrors, chandeliers, and shelves where merchandise is well displayed. They are an inviting setting for enjoying a coffee or a selection of hazelnut pralines.
Market stalls are arranged in the middle of the street, leaving the sides for pedestrian use. The market along Via Maestra is mainly about clothing, personal accessories, and household items.
Piazza Duomo and Café Calissano
Piazza Risorgimento, better known as Piazza del Duomo, is the heart of Alba, overlooked by the ancient Cathedral and its facade remodeled in the 1800s.
Under the arcades of Piazza del Duomo, stands the XIX century Café Calissano, defined by local writer Beppe Fenoglio, as “the Coffee Shop of Lords”.
Fenoglio lived in the building across the square, on the opposite side of Café Calissano, where his father owned a butcher shop and where today finds home the Fenoglio Study Center.
These are just some of the stops along an itinerary that follows the footsteps of Fenoglio’s personal life memories that inspired many of his novels. For example, in the case of Café Calissano, the writer praised the fragrance of the coffee, that invaded the square, mixed with the acrid smell of tobacco.
The current owner maintains the charm of a literary café, a title that earned over time by hosting writers and poets with a certain frequency.
Alba and its Three-Michelin-Star Restaurant
We need to move away a little from the market stalls which obstruct the view of the buildings behind. Giving the back to the church, one can admire the Town Hall and some of the tallest medieval towers elevated in bricks.
Not far from the Café Calissano, in the middle of the square, the first floor of the central building hosts the dining room of Piazza Duomo restaurant, awarded with three Michelin stars, one of the few in Italy. Chef Enrico Crippa and his crew can be seen going in and out of the restaurant, in the alley that opens up under the arcades of the square.
Dining in a Michelin-star restaurant is the experience of a lifetime and it should be arranged plenty in advance due to long waiting lists. Said that Meet Piemonte Tour Operator recommends to his guests vacationing in the area for multiple days to alternate fine dining to casual trattorie that still exist in Piedmont, providing excellent service and genuine food.
A list of such casual restaurants can be found in the guidebook “Osterie d’Italia”, published by Slow Food.
Market Day in Alba: The History
Market day in Alba is also an opportunity for visitors to be seduced by local history. The market evolved throughout centuries and along Via Cavour stands one of the earliest sites.
Casa Giuliano, also known as Casa Sacco or more simply Loggia dei Mercanti, is noted for the uniform façade, today covered with plaster but originally built with exposed bricks. The five pointed arches of the front porch facing Via Cavour, together with the two strings of clay tiles that mark each floor, give to the building a compact appearance.
This singularly large porch most likely constituted the site of the grains market, which, in Piedmont, was often covered and close to the main market.
It is uncertain whether this building was built specifically for this function or if it came later on the pre-existing covered grain market. In fact, until the end of the XVIII century, the area next to the Loggia dei Mercanti was used for the trade of cereals and grains in general.
Slow Food Market Day in Alba
Piazza Pertinace is home to the so-called Mercato della Terra, a display of traditional and local food purveyors, the ideal background for the Alba Food Tour, where guests can get familiar with seasonal ingredients.
This market takes place every Saturday morning since 2010 and it is supported by Slow Food and by the Town Hall of Alba.
It differs from the rest of the food market for being exclusively held by small and artisanal food purveyors and farmers, selected within a radius of 50 km, according to the principles of the Slow Food Association.
Each vendor is constantly monitored and must respect quality standards.
Alba, Capital of Food and Wine in Piedmont
Meet Piemonte’s 6-day Food & Wine Tour in Piedmont visits Alba and the whole stretch of hills around Asti, as one of the main culinary points of reference in the region.
The Piedmont region is an incredible resource of high-quality ingredients ranging from the Italian rice cultivated in the valley of the Po River to the wide cheese selection of the Alpine valleys. Famous cheeses like gorgonzola produced in the province of Novara, are also from Piedmont, while other less-known dairy products are elevated in texture and aroma by a handful of cheese refiners.
Cow, sheep, and goat milk is used raw in most cases, sometimes in purity, other times mixed, by following the strict hygienic and production rules of each Consortium. In the case of some cheese like the so-called Tuma di Langa, an indigenous breed of sheep from the Langhe Hills is used.
So market day in Alba is certainly a first great introduction to this culinary heaven that boasts ancient recipes and ingredients sourced from the nearby Italian Riviera, like capers, olive oil, and local products like honey. The great bio-diversity of Piedmont is the ideal countryside where a few brave producers sell rare types of honey from spruce, rhododendron, willow, rapeseed, dandelion, cherry, and the bitter chestnut honey, the perfect pairing for Castelmagno cheese.
Moreover, Alba stands out for the International Truffle Fair that brings to the town foodies and chefs each year from mid-October to early December. This is when the local egg-pasta noodles (called tajarin) fried eggs, cheese fondue, and many other dishes can be topped with freshly shaved white truffles.
The Covered Produce Market in Alba
In Piazza Marconi takes place the food market of Alba featuring all sorts of products including those imported from other regions or from abroad, like citrus or exotic fruit. The iron-wrought structure is a perfect shelter for vegetables, flowers, stalls selling take-out dishes, and those specializing in fish.
One can also find traditional stalls like the anciué, a dialect word describing the salted anchovies and salted or dried cod vendors. For centuries, these two kinds of fish were the only ones available in the local cuisine, being the sea located days of walking away and refrigeration not an option.
Salted anchovies, in particular, added saltiness more than fishy flavor to many traditional recipes, or simply added to roasted peppers to enhance their flavor. Cod was more commonly consumed during Lent as meat was prohibited.
The nearby Piazza Prunotto is also home of a covered market where about 50 farmers displays their vegetables, fruit, aromatic herbs, eggs as well as live chickens! In this same square farmers make deals on tractors and other pieces of machinery used in agriculture.
Where to Park in Alba on a Saturday
Market day in Alba can be a nightmare when looking for a parking lot! Here’s a list of suggested parking, among private, public, covered and open-air ones.
- Next to the train station in Piazza Trento e Trieste (hourly fee)
- Covered parking in Piazza San Paolo (hourly fee)
- Piazza Medford in front of Hotel I Castelli (free of charge but often used for events)
- In front of the hospital – Ospedale San Lazzaro – (part of it is free of charge, part is not)
- The area around Piazza Prunotto is a large and free-of-charge parking lot. Being located around the covered food market, it can get quite hectic. Many people come and go so it doesn’t hurt to have a look.
Market day in Alba is not just on Saturday: on Wednesday there is a smaller one in Piazza San Paolo. Tuesday and Thursday morning a small food market takes place in Piazza Marconi and Piazza Prunotto.
