About Us

ELIZABETH AND MARCO

For the past 30 years I have been cooking and tasting my way around the kitchens of Tuscany’s mamma’s and nonna’s, gleaning the secrets of this mythical culinary heritage. Since packing up my London life, my Tuscan food quest has led me on all sorts of unexpected adventures, including, an invitation to Toronto Canada to represent Tuscan cuisine and hold a master class with effervescent young international chefs.

To complete my ‘Tuscan Dream’ my Florentine husband whom i met in the skies between Florence and London, shares this passion. Growing up in a Florentine family with three women dedicated to the preparation of family meals, sowed the seeds of his extensive culinary knowledge. Together we have cooked, hiked, biked and roamed, up and down the hills and valleys of Tuscany in search of pastures and plots of off-the-beaten -track artisan growers and producers at the very heart of the Tuscan table.

When eventually, the larder shelves started to creak under the weight of organic flours, Bolsena beans, black lentils, friends’ farro, and our waists were expanding from all the fabuolous daily dishes while this passion was taking over our lives, it was clear that the time had come for us to put aside our separate professions and open a small restaurant in the garden of our 15th century water-mill home near Florence, which in the meantime we had found, bought and restored. For 10 years in our award winning restaurant, we gave free reign to what we call our ‘lifestyle cooking’, sharing experiences with other food and wine enthusiasts. Then we decided to downsize and experience living in a different area of Tuscany.

The newest phase of this culinary adventure opened in 2022 driven by my unstoppable passion for cooking with people and not just for people. Selling our watermill home and restaurant, we moved with dogs, cats and doves to a fascinating mountain village in the UNESCO designated Apuan Mountain Park, 35km from Lucca and 8km from the sea and 110km from Florence.

Casoli, a traffic-free Medieval mountain village, unique in it’s history of attracting artists, sculptors and literary luminaries, is perched peacefully above the Roman origin market town of Camaiore, a treasure trove for anyone in search of amazing ingredients. The rare luxury of being able to choose between several fabulous family run butchers, bakers, fruit and vegetable growers, cheese producers and farmers market; popping along to the coast to pick up the catch of the day from families of fishermen, coming home and being able to spend the afternoon in the mountains picking wild herbs and gleaning recipes from the more isolated inhabitants, were indisputable attractions to two gourmands in search of a new home.

From our delightful quirky labyrinthine mountain home, I am now happily able to concentrate on cooking with people. Small groups of 2 – 4 like-minded foodies gather regularly around the table, kneeding, chopping, stirring, tasting, talking ingredients and sharing food experiences, before sitting down to eat together looking onto the mountains and over the valley to the coast.

We both love the exchange of cultures, views and experiences with people, so once we had completed the restoration of our home, we decided to open up to guests. We now offer Bed and Hearty Home-Made Breakfast (and dinner on request) to just two guests in our lovingly prepared guest suite.