Borgo La Chiaracia Resort and Spa: Umbria's Luxurious Secret Escape

Posted by Rowena Dumlao Rowena Dumlao - Giardina 1/07/2023

Borgo La Chiaracia Resort and Spa: Umbria's Luxurious Secret Escape

In the plateau of Alfina where the borders of Lazio and Umbria meet, on one side you can enjoy the gentle Umbrian hills with varied warm orange tones of autumn while the other side gives you a glimpse of the splendid Lake Bolsena. Entering a gated estate along a long driveway lined with secular oak trees that ends in a two-storey stone structure: the magic of Borgo La Chiaracia begins.

Borgo La Chiaracia is a five-star resort and spa, located at an altitude of 600 meters asl on a noble plateau included by Fondo Ambiente Italiano (FAI) in the catalog of its precious "Places of the Heart", an organization that protects the landscape, historical and artistic heritage of Italy. It is here where Eugenio Vinciguerra and Anna Ramazzotti, who for thirty years have been partners at Vrm Italia, a company that specializes in virtual communication, automation and domotics, have chosen to build the first Italian smart resort, Borgo La Chiaracia. With the support of General Manager Matteo Calcabrini, the guests can have a 360-degree exemplary experience of hospitality.

"It is said that some places are not mere geography, and that they must be located in the soul rather than on the map. Borgo La Chiaracia stands exactly on one of these and, indeed, is in itself an Eden of strength and vitality. Situated as it is at the crossroads between Lazio, Umbria and Tuscany, in the heart of ancient Etruria, it stretches over hills inhabited since the mists of time, when even Rome was yet to come, but even more than its history, its characteristics make it unique. It rises on volcanic earth, rich in energy that has survived the ages and generations, and for this very reason able to endure and nourish without end anyone who still passes through and stays there today."

The luxurious resort is situated in the heart of 14 hectares of land wherein organic vineyards, gardens and cultivated crops of cereals mix with the natural setting of a hilly landscape of secular trees of oak, walnut, chestnut, hazelnut and red fruits. It is a haven where the balance of nature, tradition and modernity harmoniously coexist, a refuge where you can regenerate body and mind, and a place where the excellence of the territory's gastronomy is underlined by the expert hands of their chefs. In a less than two-hour drive, its 140-kilometer proximity to Rome makes it the perfect retreat from the frenetic pace of the city.

Borgo La Chiaracia has 26 rooms, including 3 suites; a multi-awarded avant-garde gourmet restaurant Radici; a traditional modern tavern, La Pagoda; and a temple of wellness, Spa Livinna.

Executive Chef Daniele Auricchio 
Both the fine dining gourmet restaurant Radici and the modern tavern La Pagoda are directed by Executive Chef Daniele Auricchio, a talented chef who hails from Naples in the Campania region. He is a professional who tirelessly searches for new balances of taste, never banal or predictable, in which to calibrate those impeccable, vigorous and dazzling but not intrusive aromatic thrusts that have become his hallmark. His career has taken him to kitchens alongside important chefs where he perfected his techniques like with Sergio Mei at the Four Seasons in Milan, Raffaele Lenzi of Michelin-starred Il Sereno Al Lago Restaurant in Lake Como and finally with Martín Berasategui of three Michelin-starred Lasarte Restaurant in Barcelona. The strength of Radici and La Pagoda come from the creative mind and great techniques utilized by the chef in his dishes. Some of the raw materials used in his dishes are sourced from the estate itself like the hazelnuts, chestnuts, grapes, spelt, cherries, walnuts, mushrooms, wild chicory, elderberries, acacia flowers, fennel and about forty varieties of aromatic herbs grown in the small vegetable garden of the resort. Whereas the others are sourced from reputable breeders and producers of the area (above all from Urbevetus Farm of Alfredo Angeli) according to seasonality.

"Cooking is an indissoluble link between received and transmitted experiences, technique and daily research, consideration for the raw materials and for the territory where each producer invests his life. The kitchen is freedom of expression and attention to detail, to present a result every time to share with each guest and create a dialogue that unites people, products and places, where everything flows like sap that brings nourishment and life from the Roots to the top of the emotions. The paths of La Pagoda and Radici are deeply intertwined with each other and irreparably linked to the availability of raw materials, which run through both menus and are treated with equal attention and technique by a single close-knit and inclusive kitchen brigade, which I seek to involve as much as possible also in my work of creating and fine-tuning the recipes," declares Daniele Auricchio.

Radici 
Radici is the fine dining restaurant of Borgo La Chiaracia that is accessible to both hotel guests and external clients who want to try the avant garde cuisine that Chef Auricchio and his team prepares. It offers the palate a bold but refined symphony of combinations of flavors, textures and colors, between centuries-old raw materials and new trajectories of haute cuisine. The ingredients are the absolute protagonists of the chef's creations, capturing their genuine characteristics, molded into original concoctions. To gourmands, Radici is a destination to capture the contemporary soul of Auricchio's cuisine. A dinner with the Mano Libera tasting menu puts the chef's great capacity to express his identity and vision with authentic and creative proposals on your table and with the right orchestration of service and wine pairing by the dining staff, it comes out quite an outstanding experience. The most notable dish is the Cipolla, a composition of diverse textures and cooking methods of the Cannara onions shaped into a cannolo which is actually the skin of the onion instead of pasta, filled with slow-cooked meat and onion sauce, then finalized with bay leaf broth.

 Mauro Clementi, maitre d'hotel, sommelier and connoisseur of the local cellars, signs the wine list. It is a fine selection of various Italian and foreign wines that represent terroirs and native vines of both noble and small cellars. The list also includes Borgo La Chiaracia's own production of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir produced from the vines that are cultivated in the estate's one hectare of vineyards and vinified for them in Orvieto.

Radici offers two tasting menus: Origini 20 (€68) is composed of four courses that epitomize the flavors and aromas of the woods. Menu a Mano Libera (€98) is composed of six courses that follow the fantasy of the chef. The tasting menus can be paired with wines: 3 glasses (€30) or 4 glasses (€45). Appetizers, first dishes of pasta and risotto, and main dishes of meat and seafood are between €20 to €32 while desserts are at €18.

La Pagoda
If the kitchen of Radici dares to be creative, Chef Auricchio instead retains the roots of Italian and Umbrian tradition by presenting dishes made with timeless recipes. La Pagoda is open only to the patrons of the hotel and it's the perfect place to get to know the territory with the local cuisine created with the expertise of the chef and his brigade. The menu has five seasonal proposals per course starting with the appetizers to first dishes of pasta, soups and risotto between €14 to €22, main courses of meat and seafood between €22 to €55, and desserts between €10 to €16.

Spa Livinna
At the spa, you can spend the time in the splendid panoramic swimming pool, switch from the Turkish bath to the aromatic shower following the most relaxing of the wellness programs, choose between the Finnish sauna heated to 90 degrees and the saline sauna with its temperature of 40 degrees. Or abandon yourself in the hands of a team of professionals ready to tailor a range of massages and prodigious beauty treatments. There is also the Physia, unique in Italy, which acts in the field of cell regeneration by working on the biological cellular memory to restore the skin's texture and appearance. Whereas the Zerobody Starpool bed triggers the relaxation of muscles and thoughts by reproducing the absence of gravity and letting the body levitate on 400 liters of hot water, while special headphones whisper a collection of functional sounds and music into the ears.