Sicily, Italy

Braccialieri

Price per night from$362.70

Price information

If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (inclusive of taxes and fees) available in the next 60 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (EUR319.00), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Braccialieri Photos

Style

Well-zested farmstay

Setting

Ionian-gazing groves

Explore

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Tucked into the olive-scented heart of Sicily’s Val di Noto, Braccialieri is a family-run farming estate nurturing a deep-rooted love for the land. Sicilian citrus fruits and flowers were inspiration for the bold, pop-art patterns which splash colour across the suites’ wallpaper and pool’s geranium-printed parasols. A real rusticity remains in the original stone- and tile-work, which set the scene for field-to-fork dining, cooking classes and olive oil pressing — when you’re not basking in nearby Noto’s Baroque beauty, that is.

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Locally made treats including olive oil and fruit jam

Facilities

Photos Braccialieri facilities

Need to know

Rooms

Nine, including three suites and six standalone villas.

Check–Out

11am and check-in is at 3pm. Both are flexible, on request and subject to availability.

More details

Rates include a farm fresh buffet breakfast served in the hotel’s original wine-making room. There's a four-night minimum stay from July to September, and two nights at all other times.

Also

All common areas of the hotel are wheelchair-accessible, and the Deluxe Suite Tangerine is suitable for guests with limited mobility.

Please note

The hotel’s national identification code (CIN) is IT089002B54HBK7KSX

At the hotel

Organic garden, olive groves, baglio courtyard, bicycles to borrow, nearby beach club to reserve and free WiFi throughout. In rooms: air-conditioning, TV, minibar, Lavazza coffee machine, tea-making kit, bathrobes, slippers and La Bottega Votary bath products.

Our favourite rooms

No two rooms are the same at this fashion-infused farmstay, but you can expect bespoke wallpaper, preserved tilework, and Italian-crafted furniture throughout. Pool Suite Amare is the largest of the three suites, and is worth reserving for its private pool and restored masonry kitchen alone. Admire the handiwork of the same craftsman who renovated Noto’s cathedral as you gaze up at the reed-thatched ceiling in Junior Suite Geranium, and sleep beneath a slice of Sicilian history. The Eco Villas are all about embracing the island’s rustic side, and come with some of the hotel’s furthest reaching views over the Avola hills (plus kitchens to prep your own snacks in).

Poolside

Now, this is a pool that you’re going to want to photograph as much as swim in and bask beside. The red-and-white checkerboard design is inspired by traditional Sicilian kitchen tiles, and the patterned-all-over parasols and loungers are drawn from the geraniums which flower throughout the grounds (and island).

Spa

There’s no spa, but massages and beauty treatments can be arranged by the hotel on request.

Packing tips

Read up on Sicilian fruits and flowers; the bounty of this sun-kissed island is not only to be sampled in Braccialieri’s restaurant, but the citrus-inspired wallpaper and furnishings encourages you to eat with your eyes, too.

Also

A few steps from the pool, there’s a matching red-and-white table for throwing alfresco pizza parties under a vine-climbed pergola.

Pet‐friendly

Well-behaved dogs are welcome to stay in any room free of charge. See more pet-friendly hotels in Sicily.

Children

Bambini of all ages are welcome. There are sofa-beds in every suite which can be made up on request, and some of the Eco Villas sleep up to five. Ask the hotel about arm bands and inflatables for little ones around the pool.

Sustainability efforts

Cradled within an ancient olive grove, where some of the trees have stood for over a thousand years, Braccialieri is an attentive custodian of its agricultural land. The zero-kilometre kitchen is supplied by greens from the organic garden alongside produce from local farmers, and the restaurant is housed within a carefully converted 19th-century millstone. Local artisans painstakingly restored the farmhouse’s tiled floors, stonework and traditional ceilings, preserving precious, original details. Rainwater is harvested to irrigate the grounds, solar panels offer a clean energy supply, and the outdoor tubs in some of the hotel’s Eco Villas are heated by burning olive branches gathered from trees just a few steps away.

Food and Drink

Photos Braccialieri food and drink

Top Table

Tables often spill out onto the terrace and lawn below, and it’s worth dining alfresco as the views stretch over olive groves all the way to the sea.

Dress Code

Take your palette from the pool’s red-and-white tiles — they’re inspired by the kitchen, after all.

Hotel restaurant

Rustic tables and chairs are arranged around a 19th-century millstone in Dodici Zappe, the hotel’s farm-to-table restaurant which takes its name from old agricultural tools (12 garden hoes, to be precise) used to work the land. Local farmers and fishermen supplement Braccialieri’s kitchen garden with produce that not only changes with the seasons, but by the day. You might start with red tuna marinated in Avola rum, followed by scampi risotto sprinkled with Syracuse lemon shavings and rosemary picked from a few steps away. Citrus usually features prominently in the desserts, too, from Sicilian blood orange marmalades and mousses to lemon-soaked brioche. Everything is served by candlelight on hand-painted ceramics, designed by Alessandro Enriquez especially for the hotel, and breakfast is arranged prettily atop an ancient palmento (traditional grape-pressing slab).

Hotel bar

To look at, Braccialieri’s bar is a blend of fiery-red Moroccan zellige tiles and bespoke café-inspired wallpaper by Alessandro Enriquez and Milanese Jannelli & Volpi — but the refreshments are entirely Sicilian. It’s open from 7.30am to 10.30pm for any between-meal brioches and granita, but really comes alive at aperitivo hour when ice-cold, blood orange Negronis and volcanic wines start to flow on the bougainvillea-framed terrace.

Last orders

Breakfast is served from 7.30am to 10.30am; lunch is 11.30am to 3pm, and dinner is from 7.30pm until 10.30pm.

Location

Photos Braccialieri location
Address
Braccialieri
Contrada Seggio
Avola
96012
Italy

Sandwiched between rolling hills and the Mediterranean Sea in the Val di Noto, Braccialieri is a 10-minute drive from the Baroque city of Noto.

Planes

Catania-Fontanarossa Airport (also known as Vincenzo Bellini Airport) is just under an hour’s drive away, and the hotel can help with transfers from €‎150 (one-way for up to four passengers).

Automobiles

A set of wheels will come in handy if you’re planning to flit between countryside and coastline. There’s free private parking in the hotel grounds that’s open around the clock.

Worth getting out of bed for

Sicily’s Unesco-protected Val di Noto is on Braccialieri’s doorstep, placing eight Baroque towns and cities — including The White Lotus Season 2 sensation, Noto — within comfortable day-trip distance. The limestone streets and piazzas are bathed in a golden glow, and the Corso Vittorio Emanuele is primed for a scenic passeggiata. Another Baroque beauty, nearby Modica is known for its artisan chocolate (produced using a special cold-working process). 

Half-an-hour’s drive up the coast from the hotel brings you to Syracuse, Cicero’s favourite ancient city. Greek tragedies, comedies and epics are played out across the Teatro Greco between May and July each year, and the Roman amphitheatre is equally atmospheric if you don’t manage to time your visit for one of the dramas. Cross over to the little island of Ortigia for yet more Greek myths, saving time to stop at the Doric ruins of the Temple of Apollo. 

Cool off in the caves and rivers of the Cavagrande del Cassibile nature reserve after hiking its rugged canyons and Byzantine trails. Back at Braccialieri, join the chef in the estate’s masonry kitchen for traditional cooking classes, or lend a hand with the olive oil harvest if staying between October and December.

Local restaurants

In the honey-hued heart of Noto, female-owned Ristorante Dammuso reels in ingredients from Sicily’s coast and accompanies octopus salads, tuna steaks, and red shrimp spaghetti with an island-focused wine list. Chef Marco Baglieri has transformed his family’s trattoria into Michelin-starred Ristorante Crocifisso, where diners can choose between three- and six-course seasonal tasting menus which delve into Sicily’s land-and-sea larder. Housed within a former tuna storehouse in the quaint fishing village of Marzamemi, Taverna La Cialoma stays true to its seafood heritage and serves fresh, local catches on a wave-lapped terrace.

Local cafés

Make a pilgrimage at least once into Noto for Caffè Sicilia’s peach and basil granita, ricotta-stuffed brioche and citrus-candied peels. It’s right on the Corso Vittorio Emanuele, so people watching is an added treat.

Local bars

Sip your way through organic wines grown in south-eastern Sicily at Tenuta Palmeri, a family-run vineyard just a short, 100-metre stumble back to Braccialieri.

Reviews

Photos Braccialieri reviews

Anonymous review

By Mr & Mrs Smith

Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this slow-paced farmstead overlooking the Avola hills and unpacked their hotel-pressed olive oil and volcanic-glass wine bottles, a full account of their agri-cultural break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Braccialieri in Sicily…

As farm conversions go, Braccialieri walks a well-balanced line between sensitively restoring the baglio’s historic beauty and injecting its chiselled stone walls with contemporary, colourful details. The traditional handiwork of local craftsmen sits alongside modern Italian furnishings from Alessandro Enriquez, Cassina and Cappellini, and bespoke lighting by Davide Groppi. 

The views, which unfold over centuries-old olive groves towards the Ionian Sea, speak for themselves, and can be properly admired from the sun-bleached decks and wood-fired tubs that front the hotel’s nature-immersed villas; or the thoughtfully angled bed in the Pool Suite Amare. Fresh produce is gathered from the gardens each morning, cooked over a transformed tannura stove, and presented on individually painted plates — so it soon becomes clear why Braccialieri takes its name from the old Sicilian word for ‘helping hands’.

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