Hot, dry Italian summers may help wine production, but they do no favors for the development of one of the country’s other delicacies, white truffles. Like mushrooms, the prized tubers that grow underground around the roots of oak and hazel-nut trees prefer dank conditions, so warmer weather meant this year’s truffle season was off to a late start.
Now chefs are wasting no time incorporating the seasonal treasure into their menus.
White truffles, which have a distinctively pungent, musky aroma even before they are sliced, should be shaved, parchment-thin, over a warm, fairly bland preparation, like a simple risotto, tender fresh tagliolini noodles or eggs.
Because of the price of white truffles, which this year is running around $100 an ounce thus far—the price may ease a bit as the season progresses—chefs, who might be liberal in their use of white-truffle oil, drizzling the concoction on everything in sight, reserve the fresh white truffles for certain dishes. These may come with a hefty surcharge like the $9-per-gram price that shavings fetch at San Domenico in New York.
Having white truffles on the risotto is optional, but the restaurant recommends four to five grams as an adequate portion. The truffle is weighed at the table, shaved, and then weighed again to determine the quantity used. The customer tells the waiter when to stop the fragrant shower of truffle shards on the food. In truffle season the entire dining room smells distinctively of white truffles.
Elsewhere, special dishes incorporating white truffles are offered at a steep price. At Drago in Los Angeles, a menu of special dishes with white truffles lists six of them: porcini mushroom soup with Fontina cheese toast, raw scallop carpaccio with potato and mushroom salad, risotto with Fontina cheese, tagliolini pasta with butter and Parmesan cheese, fillet of fluke in white wine with steamed potatoes and artichokes, and roast fillet of veal with sautéed mushrooms and prosciutto. These dishes are priced at $8 to $34 without truffles, $28 to $85 with them.
At the new BLT Market in New York, a plate of pasta with white truffles is $150. Café Joley in Boca Raton, Fla., serves fries with white-truffle mayonnaise made with white-truffle oil all year, and in season there are assorted white-truffle dishes. The chef, John Suley, was able to obtain white truffles very early in the season, in September, and has been incorporating them in several dishes, including grits and gnocchi veal cheek risotto and sea scallop Napoleon with white-truffle butter. Suley charges a $45 supplement for appetizers with white truffles, $75 for main dishes.
At Sapore di Ischia in Queens, New York, a special four-course white-truffle menu is served on Tuesday evenings for $50. Alto in New York adds a $100 surcharge for white truffles shaved over a ravioli that encloses an egg yolk. Del Posto in New York has a five-course white-truffle tasting menu that is priced at $295, with wine pairings, and includes both a risotto and a fresh pasta dish.
Dino in Washington, D.C., served a white-truffle tasting menu that was $125 per person and stretched for seven courses, beginning with a winter squash sformato—a smooth egg dish—with shaved white truffles, and ending with pears poached in Chianti sweetened with white-truffle honey and garnished with white-truffle shavings.