Offering a home away from home has always been Carmen Moretti de Rosa’s mission, ever since she established L’Albereta Relais & Châteaux with her father Vittorio 30 years ago.
Nestled in Italy’s Lombardy region, in the Franciacorta area-slash-wine-heaven some 50 miles outside Milan and not far from Lake Iseo, the destination has been attracting locals and a loyal Milanese crowd for relaxing weekly stays and weekend escapes for years, rising as a quiet haven and an alternative to the more touristy hot spots on Lake Como.
Related Articles
With its ivy-covered villa surrounded by lush gardens dotted with contemporary art sculptures and the renowned wineries, the charming property on the Bellavista hill foresaw some trends in hospitality with its blend of high-end cuisine, advanced spa treatments and an aesthetic that differed from traditional luxury hotel chains with a cozier environment in which each room is furnished differently.
You May Also Like
“Today these are recurrent concepts, but at the time this mix of different rooms, of modern and classic décor and the overall idea of making visitors feel at ease [were not],” recalls Moretti de Rosa. “That’s why the best compliment I receive is when people tell me they keep coming back because they feel at home. Which is a recognition that is even more important now considering how the world of hospitality has evolved and the high levels it has reached, like with domotics…but that’s not our idea of luxury. We don’t believe in flamboyance, but in a certain idea of elegance.”
For Moretti de Rosa, luxury is “to be able to offer a sensation of rest and relax in a safe space, because in the past couple of years everybody felt really safe only when at their home. So now when they are traveling, they’re looking for that feeling, which is not that different to what we thought of doing already 30 years ago.”
What has helped L’Albereta stay relevant in the eyes of its guests isn’t just maintaining its high quality, but also its ability to adjust with the times. Started with nine rooms, the structure over the years expanded to about 60 before Moretti de Rosa decided to eliminate some of them during the pandemic to create bigger suites.
Spanning five buildings, L’Albereta has 13 suites out of 53 rooms, including a special “cabriolet” one that comes with a roof that opens to offer guests the experience of sleeping under the stars.
“These past few years have been pivotal for the world of hospitality, as the pandemic at first caused this impossibility to travel and then discouraged being around too many people. We have made tweaks to give guests even more space, creating some rooms that are like apartments,” says Moretti de Rosa. “I think in the future the overall trend of the industry will be offering more and more privacy and hyper-customization, something tailor-made for each guest…because everybody is seeking their own space,” adds the executive.
She underscores the challenges this approach faces, considering the scarcity of new workers in the industry. “No one wants to work on weekends or in the evening anymore, so finding flexible resources willing to embrace this concept of luxury and personalization is not easy,” admits Moretti de Rosa.
That’s why celebrations of the Relais milestone kicked off with a big party in honor of all the employees and collaborators of the company throughout the years. Held on Sept. 23 — the day L’Albereta opened in 1993 — this was the first event in a yearlong program to mark the anniversary and that also recently saw the company launch a special home scent during its traditional Christmas market — or souk, as Moretti de Rosa calls it.
She says the product, dubbed “Buenaonda,” was in the works for a while as guests kept asking for the distinctive fragrance of the Relais to take back home a piece of L’Albereta. The scent is available exclusively at the store housed inside the property, next to a selection of design pieces that punctuate the place and exclusive wines, such as the local Vigna Leone chardonnay.
Other celebratory activities include special rates offered the 23rd of each month, while Moretti de Rosa reveals she is working on an event that will gather all the chefs who have contributed to the success of L’Albereta.
“We started with the late Gualtiero Marchesi and had all the best Italian chefs and his pupils,” she says, mentioning the likes of Michelin-starred chefs Carlo Cracco, Andrea Berton and Davide Oldani.
Moretti de Rosa and her father met the legendary chef Marchesi — who died in 2017 and is considered the father of Italian new cuisine — through a mutual friend and shared their intention to import to Italy the format of chateaux hospitality seen during their trips to France. At the time, Marchesi decided he wanted to leave Milan and move to the countryside, so he joined the project, significantly contributing to build the prestige of L’Albereta and putting the entire area on the international map.
The partnership lasted 20 years, when Marchesi returned to the city for personal reasons and L’Albereta boldly changed its gastronomic offering.
“We had his restaurant and a snack bar opened all day long, but nothing else. So when we had this delicate and painful change, we felt like creating a different project. Even though Marchesi’s pupils offered to replace him, we didn’t feel that was the right move,” recalls Moretti de Rosa. “So we came up with a diversified offering that didn’t copy what Marchesi did and that idea of cuisine — whose time was maybe also surpassed — but a dynamic one enhancing local ingredients.”
Today L’Albereta has four gourmet restaurants along with a chic lounge area for afternoon tea and evening aperitivo. Guests can enjoy dishes inspired by traditional Italian rustic cuisine from chef Fabio Abbattista at Ristorante LeoneFelice, where a large terrace opens to a view of Lake Iseo, or opt for the more informal La Filiale serving award-winning Franco Pepe’s pizzas paired with wines from Franciacorta and beyond.
Most recently, the Relais added the Stanza 54 room offering another relaxed space to eat, play cards, listen to music or read a book with charming views over the vineyards.
These locations flank the healthy Ristorante Benessere restaurant reserved for guests of the Espace Chenot Health and Wellness Spa, which is another jewel in L’Albereta’s crown.
“We opened the spa in 2003, and the idea of bringing [Henri] Chenot is rooted in another story of friendship,” says Moretti de Rosa about the late well-being guru, who died in 2020, and his renowned health care programs. “We knew he wanted to get closer to his Milanese clientele so we offered him the opportunity to join us.…At the time the coexistence of high cuisine and great wines with wellness was seen as a little weird but we thought, ’why not?’ Diet is key in feeling well.”
Undergoing a revamp to be unveiled in early 2024, the 20,000-square-foot Espace Chenot spa includes 14 treatment rooms, an indoor pool, sauna, steam bath, Turkish bath and hydrotherapy pools.
It has a team of 30 experts across masseuses, doctors, dietitians, osteopaths and wellness coaches. They focus on a holistic and systemic screening method to customize wellness programs, which focus on diet and weight loss, antiaging, energy treatments, health and prevention to improve the overall wellbeing with bio-energy check-ins. There is also a fitness center along with tennis courts, and indoor and outdoor pools.
The addition of the spa increased L’Albereta’s attractiveness among international guests — especially from France and the U.S. at first. Moretti de Rosa underscores that foreigners also value L’Albereta’s strategic position, close to cities like Milan, Bergamo, Verona and Venice, enabling different shopping or cultural trips.
Yet 60 to 70 percent of guests are still Italians who see L’Albereta as their country house. While the international audience is mostly mature in terms of demographic, Moretti de Rosa highlights that these local frequent guests are now mainly ages 25 to 40, including couples and young families. Fans of the Chenot program also make for a loyal cluster, visiting the spa at least twice a year.
“We all look for healthier and greener lifestyles now, in general,” says Moretti de Rosa. “Think of sustainability, which is increasing in hospitality but is also so difficult to apply when it comes to luxury hotellerie. You can have guests who want a change of towels three times a day and you have to serve them, of course,” she continues, also pointing to example like the amenities, which in the case of L’Albereta have been tweaked to be packaged in recycled plastic and paper.
“It would be nice to take a year off, and revamp the whole place in a sustainable way but it’s not easy,” adds the executive, who also owns the L’Andana resort in Tuscany.
Along with her father and her husband Martino de Rosa, Moretti de Rosa acquired the second estate in 2000, renovated all of the buildings in the ancient hamlet, converting the main villa into L’Andana resort and the surrounding farms into the Casa Badiola Tuscan Inn, inaugurated in 2009. The project caught the attention of another acclaimed Michelin-starred chef, Alain Ducasse, who partnered with the Moretti de Rosas from 2004 to 2015. In 2016, the founders began a new project involving Michelin-starred chef Enrico Bartolini.
Now the dream is to move to a city, as Moretti de Rosa reveals she would like to open “a 10-room home” in Milan before ultimately exporting her concept of hospitality to “the city of my heart: New York.”
Her bucket list includes launching a hospitality training academy in Italy to pass down all the knowledge and skills required to make guests feel at home. “It may sound banal, but this is a very complex job, because making others happy is not only a question of service — there’s way more behind it,” she concludes.