Mini Market with ready meals, Peruvian sandwiches, Chinese crepes: ranging with flavours from the world to Torino It’s a no-brainer. There are so many street food addresses – informal, cheap and delicious – to try for a taste of international cuisine: here are the places not to be missed.
The best international street food in Turin
Alpi Empanadas
The Alemann family, of Argentine origins, offers around twenty flavors of empanadas, made with traditional recipes. The favorite of mother Griselda, the cook, is the Humita, with corn, bechamel, peppers and parmesan. Also recommended is the Cordobesa, filled with raw meat marinated for 24 hours in lemon, cherry tomatoes and spices. Among the desserts, worth mentioning is the budin de pan (made from stale bread) with the inevitable dulce de leche.
Alpi Empanadas – corso Peschiera, 198 b – facebook.com/alpiempanadas
Also Iron
Demir Ergülü, who arrived in Italy in 1986, is Turin’s historic kebab shop. His kiosk, a few steps from the bus station, has been a point of reference for over twenty years. Now that the outdoor space has shrunk, Demir has opened a nice place (with bread-making and meat-processing workshops) in via Frejus 4, a few meters away, where you can also sit down. The specialties are those that have made his fortune: kebab (with Italian meat) in the sandwich and piadina versions, or served on a plate or as a filling for pizza or calzone. And then the Iskender: kebab meat with tomato sauce and melted butter on diced bread.
Da Demir – piazza Adriano, 6 – facebook.com/dademirpiazzaadriano
The virus
Japanese gastronomy and food, Kokoroya is a tiny shop a stone’s throw from Via Garibaldi, full of Japanese products and with five spartan seats at the counter where you can stop and eat. The couple who run the restaurant are Italian-Japanese: he welcomes customers, she – half of whom come from the Land of the Rising Sun – prepares authentic home-cooked dishes, including take-away options. From Tuesday to Friday there are various lunch formulas that allow you to enjoy, at reasonable prices, excellent takoyaki (octopus balls) and your choice of onigiri, miso or wakame seaweed soups.
The Crow – Via Piave, 9 a – instagram.com/the crowd/?hl=it
Mei shi mei ke
The restaurant, just a few steps from Piazza Statuto, is the unmissable destination for those who love Chinese ravioli. To eat in or take away, boiled or grilled, they have different fillings but they are all delicious: chives and pork, Chinese cabbage and pork, lamb and carrots, shrimp and courgettes, beef celery and spring onions. The spaghetti are also excellent, in the versions in broth, with vegetable sauce, egg and pork, with shrimp, calamari, egg and vegetables, with spicy pork sauce.
Mei shi mei ke – Corso Francia, 263 – via Luigi Cibrario, 3 – facebook.com/p/MEI-SHI-MEI-KE-100055217327593/?locale=it_IT
Patria – Cevicheria Street Food
The first Peruvian street food restaurant in Turin, opened in San Salvario by Miguel Bustinza and Patricia Trujillo, is a simpler version of their restaurant Vale un Peru. The restaurant offers lunch and dinner specialties such as the nikkei sandwich, butifarra with Ficini bread (a famous bakery right across the street), empanadas and the inevitable fish ceviche, also available to take away.
Patria – Cevicheria Street Food – via Claudio Luigi Berthollet, 33 a – facebook.com/Patriastreetfood/
Take Away Street Food
A simple shop window a few meters from Via Garibaldi, one of the busiest pedestrian streets in the city. The small internal room, with a few seats, is occupied by the open kitchen where jianbing are prepared, a sort of Chinese crepes that have as a base a batter of water and flour cooked on a griddle, with the addition of egg, coriander, chives, sesame, soy sauce and various other ingredients. The rest of the menu focuses on Taiwanese fried chicken and jiaozi, Chinese beef or pork ravioli.
Take Away Street Food – via San Francesco d’Assisi, 1 c
Minamoto
This small and central Japanese restaurant is the kingdom of takoyaki, the typical octopus balls with a crispy shell and soft inside, made with flour, water and dashi broth. The place is small (better to book) but the take-away is well organized and a stone’s throw away is Piazza Carlo Alberto, ideal for enjoying the specialties of Osaka, the city where the chef comes from. The menu is very rich, we recommend not to miss the tasting of tonkatsu, the Japanese fried pork cutlet.
Takoyaki Minamoto – via Bogino, 17 d – facebook.com/p/Takoyaki-Minamoto-Torino-100057359421862/
