Dining
One table under the vaults of the old press room, laid twice a day — breakfast for the house, dinner for anyone who books it.
The room the press left behind
The vaults are the original ones and the soot above the arches is the original soot, left where it is because it is the only honest record of what the room did before it was a dining room.
The 2019 restoration is mostly a list of removals: a partition wall, a false ceiling, the tiling put down in the 1970s. What went back is short — lime plaster where plaster was missing, one line of low light along the springing of the vault, and a single table of local walnut. Nothing was added to make the room look older than it is.
Breakfast
8.00 to 10.30, in the cloister or in your room
Bread from the forno on Via delle Beccherie, the estate’s oil, ricotta and fig preserve, whatever fruit is in, eggs cooked to order. Coffee is made one cup at a time at the bar in the hall, and there is no buffet.
Dinner
One seating at 20.00, Tuesday to Saturday
Four courses on one menu, written the same morning around what the Murgia has given that week — cavatelli, lamb, bitter greens, pecorino di Filiano. You are told what there is when you sit down; there is no card. Twelve covers.
Where it comes from
Vegetables and greens come from two growers on the Murgia plateau and from the Saturday market on Via Ascanio Persio. The bread is Matera’s own, made to the DOP method with local durum semolina. The oil is the estate’s, pressed from Majatica olives forty minutes north — the same variety that was pressed in this room.
The wine list is short and entirely from Basilicata: Aglianico del Vulture from four small growers on the volcano, a few whites from Matera DOC, and one passito for the end of the evening. Anything on it can be had by the glass.
Dietary requirements are straightforward if we know a day ahead — tell us when you book. Dinner is open to non-residents when there is room, though residents have first call until noon on the day. Book by email or at the desk.