Why book Monaci delle Terre Nere?
For top-tier Sicilian food and romantic design dens scattered throughout the volcanic slopes of this go-slow, soul-nourishing estate.
Hotel address: Monaci delle Terre Nere, Via Monaci, Via Pietralunga, sn, 95019 Zafferana etnea CT, Italy
Website: monacidelleterrenere.it
Phone number: +39 095 708 3638
Price from: £232 a night
Set the scene
Soft jazz wafts over a volcanic pool, ice tinkles in glasses of Sicilian gin and tonic and the gentle curve of Etna’s eastern slope towards the Ionian pull eyes over rugged vineyards, olive groves, apricot and clementine trees to where a lush, near tropical green meets the sea. Welcome to one of Sicily’s smartest country hotels – an elevated take on rural simplicity, where the morning mist collecting along vines combing the hills, the distant church bell and cricket soundtrack all soothe any homegrown malaise. Within the peachy, blistered walls of the main house – a carefully renovated 17th-century monastery – a blend of antiquity and avant-garde decor (seemingly the baseline in these stretches), plays host to an extraordinary farm-to-fork operation, granting the hotel its agriturismo status. Outside, uplit nooks in ancient walls guide well-oiled Europeans and elated New Yorkers home to bed after drawn-out evenings, spent drinking the estate’s own wine under the stars.
The backstory
As one of Sicily’s most prestigious country hotels, Monaci delle Terre Nere was ahead of its time in leveraging top-notch produce from its volcanic soil for a theatrical, yet classically simple, destination restaurant. Owner and wine connoisseur, Guido Coffa, has skilfully honed an elevated organic and home-grown ethos – and it carries into the design. Coffa respectfully renovated the main building; any contemporary additions are pardoned with sympathetic stones and materials, though the slightly racy modern art makes no apologies. Surrounding it, 60 acres of vineyards, fruit trees, herb gardens and olive groves seem to swallow up a scattering of renovated barns and private villas – all meticulously sewn into this bucolic picture.
