What is the castle?

Ever wonder how fresh burrata is made? Ever wanted to learn how to make fresh bread in a wood-fired oven, using only flour, water and yeast, feeding the oven’s mouth with local olive wood and vine trimmings? Ever wanted to learn how to make fresh pasta in that Italian kitchen you’ve always dreamed about? Want to learn more about Italian wine?

These experiences are what our castle courses are all about, allowing you to go deeper into the culture than you ever thought possible.

While it’s true that castle and its grounds are charming and regal, it’s important to note that they actually make up about a quarter of the historic centre of provincial, Southern Italian town. And it’s the relationship with this town and its people that make our castle courses so remarkable.

You’ll meet Francesca, who makes fresh burrate right before your eyes, knotting the perfect little cheeses with deft expertise. You’ll meet Francesco and Alessandro, two young men that are making world-class olive oil from formerly abandoned groves. Friends of ours for years, we’ll taste their oils, they’ll show us how they do it. And you’ll meet Giuseppe the butcher, who sees the chitchats between the two of you just as important as anything he does with a knife.

Depending on the time of year of your visit, we’ll dine together on the castle’s centuries-old stone loggia, the night sky and a spray of bougainvilleas, our backdrop. Or in the baron’s dinning room, a central hall that impresses, deeply, the clicking wine glasses running down the length of the massive hall.

The castle’s owner- the baron himself -- believed so deeply in our little cooking school in Lecce that he dedicated a part of his ancestral castle just for us, creating a massive stone kitchen, unlike any other in all of Italy (the architecture and design of the kitchen have appeared numerous Italian publications). Based on the measurement that he and his butler took of our school’s kitchen in Lecce, the Baron custom-designed a kitchen unlike any other. He furnished it with giant pots and pans and cutting boards and good knives, creating a room that inspires great cooking, and doing so together.

But he also built us a Mediterranean herb garden and with an old pair of shears you’ll fill your bundled apron with the heady herbs for our next meal. Or pick lemons right off his trees (we’ll have already stocked your dresser drawers with his wife’s lavender). And we’ll snip bundles and bundles of fresh bay to scent and fuel our fires for our inclusive, communal roasts, all of the sourcing involving a first name, a reach towards a tree, a package from the butcher, his hand-writing across the paper.

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