The UNESCO World Heritage listed Dolomites, inside the northern Italian Alps, are a jaw-dropping set of peaks, whose majesty is hard to convey till you’ve really been there.
An costly base from which to find them is Resort La Perla, a member of the Most important Lodges of the World, inside the village of Corvara – the center of the Alta Badia ski resort – inside the province of Alto Adige (aka Südtirol).
Primarily based in 1956 by Ernesto and Anni Costa, this South Tyrolean manor house is now run by their sons, Michil, Mathias and Maximilian, all of whom have a hands-on place on the property, welcoming guests with the good and comfortable hospitality typical of Alto Adige’s standard Ladin mountain custom.
This inviting ambiance, which sees the lederhosen-clad Mathias Costa and Corvara locals mingle with lodge guests over a drink, is a key motive why many guests return yearly and switch into part of the extended La Perla ‘family’.
One among many Romantik double rooms at Resort La Perla. Credit score rating: Casa Costa 1956
Typical however elegant residing
The lodge affords 51 rooms, ranging from singles to suites, most with their very personal balcony, each coping with the imposing Mount Sassongher or the picturesque village. The mannequin all via is standard however elegant – rugs and reclaimed wood, uncovered beams and cosy delicate furnishings, along with regional paintings and quirky tools akin to classic strolling sticks and teapots.
Inside the Romantik double rooms, take pleasure in an infinite pillow- and throw-laden king-sized mattress with crisp linen, a traditional silo-like free-standing hearth, a leather-based chesterfield, and a chandelier over a breakfast desk, the place an ice bucket and bottle of Franciacorta, modern fruit and candies welcome you.
La Stüa de Michil, the Michelin one-starred restaurant at Resort La Perla. Credit score rating: Gustav Willeit
Connoisseur consuming, from cosy to Michelin
Guests are spoiled for various referring to consuming decisions. Les Stües (‘The Rooms’) is the first half-board restaurant, on the market solely to guests. As its title suggests, it is a warren of connecting wood-panelled rooms each with its private distinctive standard décor following real Alpine kitchen-diners from the 1700s: assume daring tablecloths and curtains, matching floral preparations and crockery, and decorative plates adorning the partitions.
If you may refill on the buffet-style salad bar, the à la carte menu of standard Alto Adige dishes is straightforward however comforting and, as with all La Perla’s consuming locations, vegan menus could be discovered.
On a sunny day, the Bistrot’s terrace is the place to be for a casual lunch, notably for conventional Italian fare. Or sit inside, throughout the spectacular polished wood most necessary bar, for afternoon tea or an aperitif. After darkish, the venue turns into the Music Membership, with completely completely different native singers and musicians each night time time.
Gourmands can have booked their seat on the Michelin one-star La Stüa de Michil prematurely. Whereas it follows the 18th-century wood panelling of the rest of La Perla, that’s further of an opulent, intimate, candle-lit chamber, the place Calabrian chef Simone Cantafio takes inspiration from his years in Japan to create an fashionable tasting menu for as a lot as 10 people.
Resort La Perla’s meals and drinks philosophy is pure, native and seasonal. Credit score rating: Casa Costa 1956
Sustainable, seasonal and pure
A stone’s throw from La Perla, is sister property Berghotel Ladinia. The setting up was the first inn in Corvara and its historic, rustic décor exudes precise attract. The eponymous Alpine restaurant specialises in using domestically farmed, grown and solid produce and the wine document champions primarily boutique Alto Adige producers, a number of which work biodynamically.
From intensive buffet breakfast to fashionable nightcap, La Perla’s meals and drinks philosophy is pure, native and seasonal, and encourages diners to eschew meat on Fridays. The lodge moreover follows the Frequent Welfare Monetary system model, the place social accountability, ecological sustainability, democratic administration and agency solidarity trade income as the company purpose.
To underline the brothers’ altruism, they prepare the Costa Family Foundation in 2007 to protect and promote the rights of children, primarily in creating worldwide places, along with setting up faculties and supporting vitamin and irrigation duties. A dish on each restaurant menu is ‘priceless’ and invites diners to pay what they like, with all proceeds going to the inspiration.
The Sassicaia ‘temple’ inside the Mahatma Cellar at Resort La Perla. Credit score rating: Gustav Willeit
Wine-lovers’ haven
For wine lovers, the pinnacle of a hold at La Perla is a go to to its Mahatma Cellar, which boasts larger than 30,000 bottles from all through Europe. Put collectively to be amazed by the imaginative and prescient of Michil Costa, as you take a sensory journey by the use of each cave of the labyrinthine cellar, designed in a bespoke theme of not solely wine nevertheless music and explanatory voice-overs to accompany the very distinctive design and tools.
Among the many many 3,000 labels, of which half are from Alto Adige, there are cellars dedicated to Champagne, Burgundy and Barolo, nevertheless basically probably the most jaw-dropping is the Sassicaia ‘temple’. To really experience this SuperTuscan in all its glory, guests can e e-book a guided tasting (one among 5 on present) inside the Incö Weinstube.
This intimate, informal wine room, with banquette-style seating spherical a wooden island desk could be utilized by chef Simone Cantafio for a three-course sharing menu for as a lot as six people, using solely what native farmers and foragers have delivered that day.
Après-ski at Resort La Perla’s L’Murin. Credit score rating: Gustav Willeit
On the slopes
To work up an urge for meals for all these meals and wine decisions, you’ll be spending your days on the mountains – whether or not or not summer time season or winter. Alta Badia, part of Dolomiti Superski, has 132km of slopes and 53 lifts; La Perla is ski-in, ski-out, with the Col Alto elevate (Italy’s first) 30m from the doorway door. On the end of the day, be part of everyone else inside the valley and head to the lodge’s L’Murin – an après ski institution, which turns right into a beer yard in summer time season, full with a treehouse for romantic rendezvous.
For those who’re staying all through La Perla’s summer time season season (June to September) take pleasure in a nine-hole golf course at 1,700m, or check out your biking mettle on the extreme Dolomite passes – the lodge has an expansion of premium Pinarello freeway and mountain bikes, along with e-bikes for the a lot much less adventurous. As with biking, keen hikers can profit from a every day guided tour with the surface train instructor (he’s inside the lobby each morning) or ask him for advice on native By way of Ferrata routes.
The biggest drawcard in Alta Badia is the Sellaronda, an iconic 40km ski circuit throughout the Sella massif. Nonetheless an increasing number of visitors are flocking to the mountains for contemporary gourmand options organized by the Alta Badia vacationer office and Alto Adige Sommelier Affiliation.
In winter, the programme accommodates Sommelier on the Slopes and Ski Safaris, the place a ski info and a sommelier accompany winelovers between high-end mountain ‘huts’, such as a result of the unmissable Rifugio Utia Bioch (at 2,079m), to try native wines, along with signature dishes from celeb cooks.
There’s the identical programme in summer time season, along with outdoors wine tasting excursions (Vins Alaleria), accompanied by a sommelier, in picturesque nature hotspots all through the province.
The first pool at Resort La Perla’s newly renovated spa. Credit score rating: Casa Costa 1956
Relax and escape
After so much train, meals and wine, you’ll want to decompress in La Perla’s newly renovated spa. Together with practitioners offering a bunch of heath and pure magnificence treatments, guests can profit from the indoor pool with its fluctuate of regenerative showers and therapeutic therapeutic massage jets, the sauna and steam rooms and a Kneipp hydrotherapy bathtub to revive drained toes and legs.
Resort La Perla is about 200km from Venice airport, the place the three-hour drive takes you through the Prosecco DOCG vineyards areas of Conegliano-Valdobbiadene. Alternatively, it’s 70km from Bolzano and 135km from Innsbruck in Austria. For observe travellers, the best stations are Bruneck or Fortezza.
The lodge opens for the winter season from 6 December to 7 April, and for the 2025 summer time season season from 6 June to 27 September. Expenses per night time time along with breakfast start from £250 (single); £532 (double) and £1,135 (suite).