Chasse privée de truffes et champignons avec le chef Luigi Gandola à Bellagio

This wonderful experience was one of the best tours in Italy! Everything from Truffle hunting in the woods with Shallot and Luigi - to learning about the farm to table 5 star cooking - to learning how to make pasta with truffles was enjoyable! Luigi was an excellent host with amazing skills & personality to delight & savor the best of Bellagio. Highly recommend!!!

This was an absolutely memorable experience. Big thank you to Luigi and his wonderful partner Camille who were so attentive with our group of four. Big thank Roberto and his son, Luca, for making us feel so at home (literally) for the truffle hunting portion. We loved seeing Sherlock find all of those truffles! Our tour started at 10AM and began with a tour of the Salice Blu herb garden, followed by guided Pasta making with Luigi. We then took a big van to Roberto and Luca's house where we met their pack of lovable Goldens. After some intense truffle hunting on the steep hills of their family's property, we absconded back to Salice Blue with 7 truffles. There we had a four course lunch with wine pairing which was unbelievably good. The whole day was not something that we will ever forget - a genuinely personal and unique experience and entirely worth it. One of our group members got motion sick on the Italian switchbacks, and they were very understanding and helped get them home while the rest of the group was able to continue with lunch.

My husband and I booked the truffle hunting with Luigi Gandola, and the entire experience was a huge disappointment. Leading up to the event, Luigi had very poor communication and took weeks to respond to messages. We had to send him 3-4 messages before getting a response. Our event was supposed to start at 10AM. On the day of the event at 9AM, he messaged us, "Are you available at 3PM instead?" and we said no, since we had other plans. He then said "I can only do 3PM. See you at 3PM." We had to involve Tripadvisor customer support to get a refund, since we weren't able to make the time and he was refusing to refund us. It's clear that Luigi overextends himself, double books, and is very bad at managing his own schedule. I would stay away from this experience and the restaurant.

This was such a fun day. My husband Jakub and I were picked up in Bellagio by Chef Luigi. He brought us up to his sister and brother in law's home. There we met them, his niece, and all four of their dogs! We then headed up the hill with the main truffle dog: Sherlock, and his daughter Rosa, who was in training. It was a workout! You go into the woods and up some pretty steep hills. You'll want sneakers and appropriate clothing. If you're looking for a thorough education on truffle hunting, this isn't it. This is a real family, with their family dogs, taking you under their wing and throughout their property. It's so intimate, unique, and unlike anything we've done. It was very cool watching Sherlock hunt and dig up the truffles. They had to be grabbed out of his mouth before he could eat them, haha. We ended up finding a ton of truffles! Then, we were driven down to the Ristorante Salice Blu, where we joined a cooking class already in progress. From there we got to make pasta and ragu before sitting down to an amazing dinner that featured our truffles. Chef Luigi is a character. He's hilarious and passionate. He will tease you throughout the day. When you're cooking, it's in his open, active restaurant. You really get a peek into what this restaurant kitchen is like. His wife Camilla runs the restaurant with him. She is so sweet, knowledgable and a joy to chat with. His Mom was also in the kitchen helping with some of our more helpless pasta makers. It's a real family affair, and the restaurant is their family legacy. Chef Luigi and his entire family really take you into their lives for the day. It's such a unique and personal experience. This is all without mentioning that the food was amaaaaaazing. It's a lot of food, and you can have seconds. (Which of course, we did.) Also, I'm still thinking about the rosemary limoncello they make themselves.

We had a wonderful time with Chef Luigi family , great hospitality, very inviting and kind family . We enjoyed all the meal courses that shef prepared for us , very tasty and delicious, we highly recommend them .

This experience was by far the best thing we’ve done on our trip in Italy. Chef Luigi picked us up in Bellagio and we drove up to the forest for truffle foraging. His dog Charlotte is SO friendly, adorable, and smart. She found 7 truffles that day! The forest is a little steep and you’re definitely on a bit of a hike that makes you sweat, but it wasn’t super intense. Although I would not recommend it for elderly people or people who don’t have good footing. There is no trail so you’re actually hiking up into the forest with no flat land or places to rest. We thought it was a nice work out before lunch! After an hour of truffle foraging, we went up to Luigi’s home and farm which was very quaint. Then we did a quick drive to his restaurant where we waited for the rest of the cooking class to arrive. The cooking class was really fun, especially with Chef Luigi’s humor and big personality. We were treated with a couple of glasses of wine during class. Afterwards, we all sat at a big table outside under a lovely gazebo where we were treated to several more glasses of wine and all the food we made in the class. The food was divine and we were super stuffed by the end of it. Thank you so much Chef Luigi for an amazing day. We’ve already recommended this experience to several of our friends who are visiting Italy within the next few months. If we come back to Lake Como I would do it all over again. Special thanks to his amazing dog Charlotte, the true hero of the day for finding so many truffles. I still think about her and miss her.

One of the best excursions we've ever done. Would highly recommend when visiting Bellagio area. We first went out for truffle hunting with Luigi and his dog which yielded several truffles. Back at the restaurant we made homemade pasta and dessert. We then sat down for probably our favorite meal of the trip where we ate the pasta we made along with plenty of truffle in every dish. The wine was delicious and the staff was extremely friendly and accommodating. Can't recommend this experience enough. Well worth the money!

Chef Luigi provided a wonderful experience for our family (5 adults, and 2 kids). He was great with the kids (ages 9 and 6) and I couldn't have asked for more concerning the day.

Viator  Hello, On Friday, May 24, 2019, I took your Private Hunting of Truffle and Mushrooms with Chef Luigi Gandola in Bellagio. Hunting for truffles has been on my bucket list for years so I was very excited to take this tour. It was the only reason that I signed up. Luigi picked me up at 10 am along with four other people and drove us to his restaurant where we started with a tour of his gardens. ( The tour description said that we would hunt truffles and mushrooms first and then have lunch prepared by Luigi, but he had already been out to the woods early that morning and brought back several porcini mushrooms - no truffles ). Then we had a cooking class where we learned to make pasta and a few other Italian dishes. This took a few hours and then the five of us sat at a table out on the patio and waited for lunch to be served. By the time we finished it was 2pm, and I'm thinking "when are we going to hunt truffles?" Apparently, the other four people had signed up for a cooking class only, which left me to hunt alone. It was already late and I was wondering what was going to happen next. Luigi drove them back to their hotels, leaving me at the restaurant to wait for his return. I had told him that I needed to be back to my car by 4 pm to pay more money at the meter so that I wouldn't get a ticket. He returned and I sat waiting. As it turned out he was digging up dirt with a backhoe, loading it into an old farm truck! I didn't pay for this part! FINALLY, around 3pm, Luigi, his assistant Paolo and I climbed into this 35 year old junky farm truck filled with tools and tool boxes and headed for the woods on Luigi's family property. First, we collected eggs from the chickens, stopped by his sister's home on the property and THEN went to the woods. The terrain was so very steep that most times I couldn't stand or walk without holding onto trees and my mind was more on staying upright than looking for mushrooms. Paolo had to grab me a few times to keep me from sliding down the hill!! I am an active, 71 year old woman, but this was not fun! I finally got back to my car around 4:15 pm after a disappointing day with no truffles. Luigi told us that this wasn't a good time for them to be found. This tour should not have been advertised as a 'truffle hunting' adventure when there were none to be found. I shouldn't have had to ride in a junky old truck alone with two men and spend six hours of my day doing something that I paid a LOT of money

Looking for a unique experience on our second trip to Lake Como, we definitely found it in the mushroom and truffle hunt with Chef Luigi. We were picked up at the dock and driven to Salice Blu, traded vehicles and headed up the hills where we spent the rest of the afternoon roaming the forest in company with Luigi and one of his staff, a mushroom authority and of course the truffle dog. After an excellent harvest we returned to the restaurant and began prepping dinner, including caring for and chopping the mushrooms, making pasta dough, risotto and dessert. Once our Italian cooking skills were exhausted we were ushered to the patio and enjoyed a truly exquisite meal and the warm hospitality of the restaurant. Overall this was a much more encompassing experience than we anticipated; not only dramatically enhancing our appreciation of mushrooms, but for one day being part of a fun Italian family passionate about cuisine and a great time. We highly recommend this activity if you don’t mind getting your hands a little dirty and enjoy a mostly easy walk in the woods. If not, then don’t miss Salice Blu where you can experience Luigi’s knowledge and passion of the local ingredients in a beautiful relaxing setting. On a side note: Luigi went above and beyond and personally drove us back to the ferry where we made it with two whole minutes to spare. We met his wife, mom and grandma, and genuinely had a wonderful time. We will wear the aprons every time we prepare mushrooms.