An 18th-century country estate in the Emilian flatlands twenty minutes south of Modena, twelve rooms inside a restored family house, the kitchen open all day, the art collection Lara Gilmore's, and the dining experience that pairs with Massimo Bottura's three-Michelin-starred Osteria Francescana.
"Twelve rooms in a country house in the Emilian flatlands, the kitchen is open all day, the breakfast is the regional buffet that ends in a tortellini-in-brodo course, and the closest dinner is run by the most decorated chef in Italy. It is the most thoughtful small hotel in the country."
Casa Maria Luigia is the small country hotel that Massimo Bottura and Lara Gilmore opened in 2019 on a property they had acquired in San Damaso, a hamlet some fifteen minutes south of central Modena. The brief was simple and the execution unhurried: the couple had been operating Osteria Francescana (three Michelin stars; twice voted the World's 50 Best #1) in Modena's medieval centre for thirty years, and Casa Maria Luigia was conceived as the residential extension of that life's work, somewhere their guests, friends, and the world's better food writers could stay between meals.
The house itself is an 18th-century Emilian villa, restored over five years with the assistance of architect Carlo Cracco and a small team of local craftsmen. The twelve rooms are arranged across the main house and a converted outbuilding: each room is individually conceived around a piece of the couple's contemporary-art collection (Maurizio Cattelan, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, James Turrell, all represented in the house), with the soft furnishings drawn from Italian linens and the bathrooms in local travertine. No two rooms are the same size or layout. The lighter ones look onto the park and the cherry orchard; the family-suites accommodate a small group of four. There is nothing about the property that has been replicated from any other hotel.
The kitchen is the property's centre of gravity, and it is open all day in a manner that no other hotel in this category attempts. Guests have free access to a fully stocked kitchen with snacks, fruit, wines, sparkling water, the famous Modena aged balsamic, and parmigiano-reggiano from the estate's preferred caseificio. Breakfast, the regional buffet, runs from 8:00 to 11:00 AM and is the longest-running Emilian breakfast on the country-hotel circuit, ending traditionally in a small tortellini-in-brodo course around 10:30. The Francescana at Maria Luigia dining experience, held in the property's converted barn for resident guests only, is a separate evening programme presenting the Osteria Francescana classics tasting menu (the famous Five Ages of Parmigiano, the Camouflage hare in the woods, the Oops! I dropped the lemon tart) on a rotating schedule. The full overnight + dinner programme runs from €1,350 per couple.
The grounds extend to a swimming pool, a tennis court, a small fitness centre that doubles as a gallery, the cherry orchard, the kitchen garden, and the working barn that hosts the dining programme. The property is closed Mondays and Tuesdays, runs full board from Wednesday through Sunday, and is closed for most of January and February. For travellers who want to understand the Modena food culture at the depth that the city's three-Michelin-starred dining represents, this is the only credible address in the region, and it is, by some measure, the most exceptional small hotel currently operating in Italy.
For an anniversary in Italy where the food is the trip, Casa Maria Luigia is the booking that almost cannot be matched. Two nights with the full dining programme, the kitchen left open all day for the in-between hours, a swim in the pool in the morning, the cherry orchard walk in the afternoon. The pairing with a dinner reservation at Osteria Francescana itself (book six months ahead, separately) makes for a single-purpose Italian milestone trip of the highest order.
A food-led honeymoon leg in Modena handles itself once Casa Maria Luigia is booked. The twelve-room scale means the property feels essentially private; the in-house dining programme means there are no logistics; the pool and the orchard handle the daytime. Pair with two nights elsewhere in Florence or on Lake Como for the variety, and Modena becomes the trip's gastronomic centre.
Solo travellers tend to find the property exceptional in a way that more programmed wellness retreats cannot reach. The kitchen is open all day; the staff are warm without being intrusive; the contemporary-art collection rewards slow looking; the gardens are walkable, the swimming pool is not crowded. Two or three nights here, with a Tuesday lunch at Franceschetta 58 in town for variety, is the perfect Emilian quiet week.
Stradello Bonaghino 56
41126 San Damaso, Modena
Italy
Modena centre 15 min by car; Bologna 50 min; Parma 40 min; Bologna Marconi airport 50 min
12 rooms (each individually designed)
Doubles from €450/night incl. breakfast and kitchen access
Suites from €650/night
Francescana at Maria Luigia full dining programme: from €1,350 for two (incl. room and dinner)
Check-in: 3:00 PM
Check-out: 11:00 AM
Opened 2019 by Massimo Bottura and Lara Gilmore
Closed Mondays and Tuesdays
Closed most of January and February
Open-all-day kitchen with snacks and wine
Francescana at Maria Luigia dining programme
Outdoor swimming pool
Tennis court
Fitness centre / gallery
Contemporary art collection (Cattelan, Hirst, Koons, Turrell)
Free Wi-Fi throughout
From €450/night. With twelve rooms the property books between four and six months ahead for prime weekends; for the Francescana at Maria Luigia dining programme add a second month of lead time. Direct contact with the property is the fastest path to dates.
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