Outside the urbanized world, a stone’s throw from the Roman coast, Santa Lucia is the right compromise between conviviality and intimacy where – try to believe – you don’t have to wait for summer to come.
An enchanted place, a true oasis where you can unplug and immerse yourself body and soul among nature, relaxation and good food. A resort with attention to every detail that instantly envelops you, putting you back at peace with the world. Where we are. In Maccarese, in the Roman countryside, where the air smells of sea and rosemary but a few kilometers from the Capital.
Owned by Raffaello Coletta, who dreamed for a long time of creating this “refuge,” with stubbornness he succeeded in the undertaking. The Santa Lucia, where the “Santa” stands for the patience it took to get going and “Lucia” comes from the name of Raffaello’s grandmother who was from this very area, is part of the Tenuta Terre dell’Agro organic farm a stone’s throw from the city center and Fiumicino airport but totally immersed in nature.
.jpg)
The farm’s concern for the environment guided the entire Santa Lucia renovation project, executed according to the principles of bioarchitecture and overseen by architect Sara Lollini. Everything is immersed, enveloped and contiguous with the surrounding nature. The property’s beautiful garden is a harmony of aromatic shrubs, clumps of pampas grass, olive trees and palm trees. There are eight rooms to stay, sixteen deck chairs with tall white cushions around the linear saltwater pool. Tranquility is a certainty. The ground-floor suites have verandas overlooking the garden and the second pool, also dark blue, where you can have breakfast in privacy but in the open air.The neutral colors of the Moroccan fabrics, the terracotta vases, the woven straw lamps, the wide grain of the wooden furniture made by an artisan cabinetmaker, just everything is designed to give a sense of harmony and peace.
The kitchen is supplied by the six-hectare farm garden where vegetables are grown completely organically and which can also be purchased as “bio boxes” to have at home. The oil is homegrown from the three hectares of olive grove near Rieti. The honey, gin, myrtle, bitters and limoncello are homemade as are the jams for breakfast. Latian tradition is brought to the table with the style and simple elegance that characterizes everything here at Santa Lucia. Even the baking is entrusted to the kitchens, and the bread and focaccia are fragrant and delicious.
At the table you can choose, in addition to a la carte, three tasting menus of three or five courses respectively and the one entirely dedicated to the Garden. We sampled the shorter menu and after a delicate aperitif with a homemade Gin Tonic we moved on to the welcome entrée: a Zeppola with lard and honey and then moved on to the selection of raw meats: Carpaccio with herb mayonnaise and ricotta infornata, exceptional; the Tartare with smoked eggplant aioli and Jerusalem artichoke chips (all strictly from the garden of course). The Fungo porcino nero dei Monti Cimini on potato cream, soft and frothy, black garlic powder and toasted hazelnuts, a real triumph of taste all from Lazio. The first course was the Bottone ripieno di zucca liquida mantecata al burro with garden black cabbage chips and Jerusalem artichokes. Then we moved on to the most delicious dish of the evening: the Chicken cacciatore with its base accompanied by rosemary mayonnaise, olive crumble and escarole. Bitter, balanced, of substance. We close with the Three Chocolates Mousse, pistachio shortbread, knockout orange caramel. Sweet but not too sweet accompanied by the homemade bitters. With the coffee also comes the small pastry: Baci di dama with white chocolate, shortbread with hazelnut cream and salted hazelnut. What to say. Impossible not to already wish to return to share this discovery with friends.
Simply put, the Santa Lucia is the right compromise between conviviality and intimacy. On the one hand the social table for (seating sixteen) to treat yourself to moments of sharing, on the other the elegant and original outdoor buried braziers surrounded by comfortable seating and an infinity of herbs where you can spend an evening poolside for a romantic dinner.
Only half an hour’s drive from Rome, close to the sea but far from the bedlam of traffic and deafening nightlife, here you can pamper yourself and rediscover the stillness of the soul.
