Massimo Bottura and Lara Gilmore standing on the gravel drive in front of the cream-painted villa, hedges and trees framing the house behind them.

San Damaso · Emilia-Romagna

Casa Maria Luigia

Massimo Bottura and Lara Gilmore's eighteenth-century villa in the countryside outside Modena — twelve rooms, two restaurants, an acetaia of more than a thousand barrels and a…

The verdict

A three-Michelin-starred chef's actual house, opened to twelve guests at a time. The art is the family's, the records on the turntable are the family's, the balsamic in the attic is the family's. The trip is to live in it for two nights.

From the editors · Vedere House

The particulars

Style: Eighteenth-century Emilian villa, twelve rooms, opened in 2019
Hosts: Massimo Bottura and Lara Gilmore — owners, in residence often
Tables: Francescana at Maria Luigia (the Osteria's classics, narrated) and Al Gatto Verde (Jessica Rosval, wood-fired)
Acetaia: More than 1,200 barrels — the family's traditional balsamic, tasted on the property
Collection: Bottura and Gilmore's contemporary art and vinyl, hung and shelved as a private house
Best for: Two nights, one of each table, an unscheduled day in between

Casa Maria Luigia is the actual house Massimo Bottura and Lara Gilmore live in when they are not at the Osteria — an eighteenth-century villa in the countryside outside Modena, in the parmigiano and balsamic-making frazione of San Damaso. They opened it to guests in 2019 with twelve rooms, no front desk, and the whole of their personal collection on the walls. The conceit is exactly that: not a hotel built around a chef, but a house belonging to one, with the bedrooms left available.

“
The art on the wall is theirs. The records on the turntable are theirs. The food is the kitchen they cook for themselves.
”

Sur place

There are two restaurants on the property and they are different rooms. Francescana at Maria Luigia serves a narrated nine-course menu of the Osteria's classics, run in the room with Bottura and Lara and Jessica Rosval. Al Gatto Verde — a separate building, green-panelled, with a Pollock-style canvas above the banquette and a wood fire at the centre — is Rosval's kitchen, written from the garden, the pasture and the fire. Breakfast is the third meal worth staying for: stretched sfoglia, parmigiano of every age, the family's traditional balsamic by the spoon.

The trip is two nights. One for each table, the second day for the acetaia in the attic, the parmigiano cellar at a neighbouring producer and a long lunch nowhere in particular. The villa keeps a vintage Maserati to be borrowed, a small vinyl library and the kitchen open all day. Modena is fifteen minutes away when wanted, and the rest of the time it is far enough.

Signature moments

A barrel-aged acetaia under an A-frame timber roof — rows of dark balsamic casks, a radial fan window glowing at the far wall, the floor in worn red brick.

The acetaia, in the attic

Above the carriage house, an A-frame loft fitted with rows of dark casks shrinking through chestnut, cherry, mulberry, ash and oak. A glowing radial fan window at the far end is the lighting; the fermentation is the rest. The traditional Modenese balsamic kept here goes back to 1907.

The Al Gatto Verde dining room — green panelled wainscot below natural-fibre walls, a large drip-painted canvas above a banquette, an oak round table set with green linen napkins and stemware.

Dinner at Al Gatto Verde

A separate building on the property, a green-wainscoted room with a Pollock-style canvas above the banquette, a Jessica Rosval kitchen run from a wood fire. The tasting reads as Emilia-Romagna without the rhetoric — the same garden, the same pasture, the same fire all night.

A pale interior with a Wegner Shell chair on a faded oriental rug, a vinyl turntable and amplifiers on a low white console, a large round black-and-white abstract canvas above.

The collection, in every room

A chair by Hans Wegner, a turntable by Linn, a record on the platter, a large Damien Hirst above. Then a vintage Italian poster, an African mask, a Polaroid. The art is hung the way it would be in a private house — close to where the chair is.

Inside the house

Massimo Bottura in low light drawing balsamic from a barrel with a long glass pipette, the dark brown liquid catching the light.

A guest suite seen through an open doorway — two large dark photographic prints above a charcoal sofa, a linen-dressed bed, a teal armchair in the foreground.

A sage-green sitting room corner — an antique marble mantel with a yellow-tiled fireback, a contemporary print of a vase above, design and art books stacked on the shelf below.

An overhead plate at Francescana at Maria Luigia — five small ravioli in a deep amber broth on a white porcelain bowl, a dish of red flower petals beside.

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