La Bottiglieria del Ruché: restaurant review
La Bottiglieria del Ruché kindles the makings of an idyllic Italian enoteca with affordable wine and eclectic decor, but then we had the food.
It was not supposed to be like this.
La Bottglieria del Ruché was not my first choice. It was not even my third, but this quaint-from-the-outside enoteca set into a street corner sharper than a bird’s beak in bucolic Castagnole Monferrato caught our eye while driving passed almost daily.
Restaurant La Braja was the Date Night's first choice. This father-son country restaurant—stained a striking sunset orange, inside and out—doubles as a time capsule both in menu and mood where the walls are plastered with papal portraits, Michelin plaques and certificates like some ecclesiastical trophy room.
The hand-cut tajarin is a tangle of Parmesan and pale rabbit ragu. Their bacon and prawns wrapped in courgette blossoms delight with subtlety. The cheese trolley smorgasbord is ceremoniously wheeled out like a last temptation that would make a Frenchman’s knee buckle.
For these reasons, La Braja was fully booked.
So we pointed the car towards Vignale Monferrato and Trattoria Serenella Le Tre Lasagne. Serenella is the kind of ferociously local place where the wine list doubles as a declaration of terroir. Their agnolotti bounce with the juices of braised meats; their bagna cauda is so intense, you half expect to need a safe word. But Serenella, too, was shuttered, on “vacanza”.
Back in Montemagno, Osteria del Rooster teased us with a €33 tasting menu of camomile and black lime risotto, ravioli del plin with aubergine and Parmesan, a grilled chicken leg perfumed with rosemary. All of it sounded promising. Except they were rammed. Diners tucked into blushing steaks while I contemplated asking whether I could eat the peach panna cotta in the car.
Then we remembered La Bottiglieria del Ruché—a little restaurant we swore to visit over the last three weeks before leaving Piemonte. And, here we were, on our penultimate night as the chill of late September rolls in.
La Bottiglieria’s decor feels homemade and knowingly haphazard, organic and crafty, busy and lived in. Their one bathroom also features a washing machine inside in case you need a quick wash and dry while working through their plate of salami and cheese (€12).
Some walls are mustard yellow; others, Ruché red. Murals overlay some surfaces, such as a door painted with cartoonish wine drinkers. La Bottiglieria’s bohemian pastiche draws a smile, but some will find its incongruence jarring.
A dark bookshelf stores libraries of Barbera, Nebbiolo and, of course, Ruché (so, mostly red wine) sourced nearby, whose bottles are etched with handwritten prices. A little sign confirms that the owners add a €5 markup to the winery’s sale price. Not bad.
The owner, who once ran a longstanding restaurant in Asti, is friendly and helpful; his fluent English is an unearned gift after my three-week ordeal of mangled Duolingo Italian.
We shuffle into a two-seater table wedged between a bookshelf, a seven-top on desserts and another table with two ladies working through plates of potato gnocchi (€11) and raw beef with hazelnut cream (€11). For us, this is a cosy village restaurant seating whereas others may consider it cramped.
It would have been wise to stick to the Ruché selection, split some cheese and salumi and steep in this non-conformist clutter. Instead, seduced by the simple clipboard menu of 14 dishes, we commit the error of eating.
La Bottiglieria did so well up until my first mouthful of limp fried anchovies gasping for seasoning. If you told me the owner simply forgot to put out the shakers that night or he could not find them among the labyrinth of stuff likely decanted from a larger restaurant into a much smaller space, I would believe you.
What I would not believe is that the same person cooked the braised rabbit in potatoes and olives—a dish so ruinously salty, my desiccated tongue recoiled. Maybe a saucepan bubbled away too long, reducing the sauce to a near crystalline state, but either no one tasted the rabbit before sending it out or, worse, it was, and someone maddeningly deemed it acceptable, which it definitely was not.
Mrs EatGoSee’s pepper rolls stuffed with tuna sauce (think vitello tonnata) were so unmemorable, I had to exume the dinner receipt while writing this review to remember it. The fresh porcini tagliolini fell flat, failing to coax the sweet thrum of fresh porcini, unlike an unforgettable lasagnetta studded with poppy seeds from Casa Signorelli, enjoyed in Alessandria just days earlier.
The pattern was clear. A kitchen struggles with balance, either shy, boring or overhanded. We finished our bottle of Ferrari Ruché Riserva for dessert, and that may be the trick to La Bottiglieria del Ruché.
La Bottiglieria del Ruché, Would I Return?
To eat, no. To drink, gladly. I’d sit outside on the terrace, let the evening creep in, and order another bottle (or two, or three). There are worse ways to spend a night in Monferrato.
La Bottiglieria del Ruché, Who Should Go?
Wine lovers.
Review information:
Number of visits: 1
Number of dishes: 5. Bread cover, €2, fried anchovies €11, rolled peppers with tuna sauce €12, porcini ragu tagliatelle €11 and rabbit with potatoes and olives €15.
Drinks: 1 bottle red wine, €23.50; 1 bottle still water, €2. La Bottiglieria del Ruché is licensed.
Total spend including taxes ex tips: €78.50.
La Bottiglieria del Ruché, Via Giuseppe Mazzini, 2, 14030 Castagnole Monferrato AT, Italy. For the latest information, visit La Bottiglieria del Ruché’s Instagram. +39 0141 193 0109.
Liam is a restaurant critic, food and travel writer based in the Middle East. He owns EatGoSee and contributes to other publications. You can find Liam on Substack, Threads, Instagram, BlueSky or Facebook.
So many bad restaurants in Italy. And good ones, too. And very good ones, too! Enjoyed reading you, Liam, as always 🙏 safe trip back home! Looking forward to the next review :)
I just can't get over the prices! Eating and drinking well for such reasonable pricing.