All Black Truffle Menu

Annual ‘All Black Truffle Menus’

Surrender to Nature’s Most Seductive Aroma

La Toque has long been known for our extravagant ‘All Black Truffle Menus’ with fresh black truffles in every course. In January 2024 we will celebrate our  42^nd  edition of this decadent menu.

For the past decade, successful truffle cultivation in the Southern Hemisphere has given us the opportunity to offer a “Summer Edition” of our ‘All Black Truffle Menu’ in July, using fresh Australian Black Winter Truffles. They are every bit as good as their European ancestors.  To have aromatic fresh Winter Truffles in the Summer is particularly exciting when we pair them with delicious ingredients such as foraged morel mushrooms or fresh sweet corn that are not available in January.

We only use truffles from sources we know well and have used for years. We feature three species of fresh Truffles; Tuber Magnatum Pico, the true white truffle, Tuber Melanosporum, the true winter black truffle and occasionally Tuber Uncinatum, often referred to as the Summer or Burgundy truffle. Other species just don’t compare, and they’re not worth the money. We do not use truffles native to China or Oregon, although we are beginning to source small initial amounts of fresh truffles from successful “truffirès” in Northern California. Chinese black truffles from the Himalayas are an inferior species with little aroma which pales in comparison to the real thing. Sadly, many people don’t know the difference and are either easily fooled, or worse, compensate with truffle oil to cut costs.

We don’t use “truffle oil”, “truffle cream”, “truffle honey” or “truffle salt” at La Toque. Flavored truffle products are crap, shunned by good chefs who know better. All of these products will desensitize your palate to the true but more subtle flavor of real fresh truffle. Truffles have been savored for millennia but truffle oil is a new phenomenon. It is no coincidence that “truffle oil” appeared only when flavor scientists figured out how to make it in the laboratory with chemicals that mimic the natural compounds responsible for the truffle’s legendary aroma. If it was possible to produce truffle oil by natural means, the Romans would have figured it out, long ago. You can infuse some fresh truffle flavor into oil or butter, but it doesn’t keep any better than fresh truffles which are best consumed within two weeks of harvest. Because of this very short shelf life, real truffle-flavored oil is simply not a viable product. No matter how fancy the bottle or prestigious the purveyor, commercially produced truffle oil is invariably artificially flavored with 2,4 dithiapentane, derived from refined petroleum. Real “homemade” truffle-flavored oil or butter is always subtle in flavor unlike the powerful products sold commercially. That little scrap of “truffle” at the bottom of the jar is often from an inferior species, and in any event, it takes much more than a little crumb of truffle to infuse oil with any amount of flavor.

La Toque offers a prix-fixe ‘All Black Truffle Menu’ in both January and July.

You can see our truffle menus from the previous year by clicking the buttons below.