Alba white truffle fair runs 36 cooking shows a weekend
Alongside the World Truffle Market, the 96th Alba white truffle fair pairs 36 weekend cooking shows with classes at the Castle of Roddi and the donkey Palio.
The Alba white truffle fair programs 36 cooking shows every weekend from 10 October to 6 December 2026, run alongside the World Truffle Market in Piedmont's Cortile della Maddalena.
Each weekend of the fair's 96th edition carries the same rhythm: two cooking shows a day, at 11am and 6pm, held in rotation across the nine-weekend run. The shows sit apart from the market itself, giving visitors a fixed point in the schedule rather than a queue for a stall.
The World Truffle Market occupies the Cortile della Maddalena every Saturday and Sunday, 9:30am to 7:30pm. Lots are weighed and checked there before they reach a buyer, and the cooking shows draw on the same truffles sold a few meters away, often finished over tajarin al tartufo bianco or a white truffle risotto.
The market sells the truffle. The cooking shows and Roddi classes are what keep people in town past Sunday lunch.
Beyond the courtyard, the fair sends visitors out to the Castle of Roddi, a short drive from central Alba, for hands-on cooking classes built around the season's truffle. The format trades the market's open crowd for a smaller room and a chef working at one table.
The Palio degli Asini, Alba's donkey race, opens the town's medieval calendar and runs separately from the food program. It draws a different crowd than the cooking shows: families and locals more than truffle buyers, and it costs nothing to watch the parade.
None of this changes what the fair is built on. White truffle, tuber magnatum pico, is dug wild from the Langhe and Roero hills and cannot be farmed or stored for long, so the market's hours and the cooking shows' fixed times exist to move a perishable product through nine weekends rather than one single day.
Visitors who want a seat at a cooking show or a place at Roddi are advised to book ahead of the weekend, since both run on a fixed number of places rather than open entry.
The fair's own calendar lists the weekend of 7 and 8 November as typically the busiest, overlapping with the World Alba White Truffle Auction at Grinzane Cavour Castle on 8 November.
36 cooking shows a weekend, fixed times
The 11am and 6pm slots repeat every Saturday and Sunday through 6 December, which means the fair runs well over 300 cooking shows across the full nine-weekend season. Each show uses truffle bought that same weekend at the market a few meters away.
Castle of Roddi adds a second venue
The Castle of Roddi classes move the program outside Alba's old town, giving the fair a second venue alongside the Cortile della Maddalena and spreading demand across the weekend rather than concentrating it in one courtyard.
