One of the hotel’s lounges.
Mark Anthony Fox
Following in the footsteps of her parents Peppeddu and Pasqua, who opened a restaurant here in the 1960s, Giovanna has grown the hotel piecemeal, adding a room here, an artist’s studio there. As a result, every space seems to have sprung from the hillside organically. The gardens – still tended by Pasqua – are the linchpin. Planted with myrtle, wild thyme, rosemary and strawberry trees, they provide the backdrop for nightly suppers, whether a communal feast in the vegetable plot or porceddu (suckling pig) eaten on top of hay bales.
Art in all its forms is woven into this place, from the 18th-century vessels on windowsills to Sardinian masks, pastoral paintings by Giuseppe Biasi or large-scale murals by Liliana Cano, Giovanna’s late mentor. Despite this being the biggest indigenous art collection on the island, there is nothing museum-like about it. Instead, it is part of the fabric of daily life, just like the bright cushions scattered on sofas and beds, woven by female artisans at the in-house craft studios.
Vintner Francesco Mulargiu opening a grape-to-table wine at Su Tapiu.
Mark Anthony Fox
This deeply agricultural land has spawned a rich culture of craftsmanship. At Corrias 1940 Calzoleria Pelletteria, in the village of Oliena, Franco Corrias produces sturdy shepherds’ boots, women’s shoes, cowhide backpacks and embroidered belts in a first-floor atelier, barely altered since it was set up by his father-in-law in 1940. There isn’t a digital device in sight, but his handwritten logbook shows orders from Norway, Germany, Switzerland, Australia and Canada. A few kilometres away in Mamoiada, Andrea Pisu heats panedda sarda in his caseificio artigianale (artisan dairy). Later, after plying us with Cannonau, the hearty red wine of the area, he takes us up to the hills to help herd his 150 sheep. Like his father before him, he’s a one-man band, rearing livestock, making small-batch cheeses such as nodini (‘little knots’ of mozzarella), ricotta and frughe, to sell locally. A few steps away, at Su Tapiu, Francesco Mulargiu serves grape-to-table wines produced at vineyards close to where Andrea’s sheep graze. They pair perfectly with dishes such as lados (Sardinian flat gnocchi) served with ragù and salty cheese.
