Tina Marcelli is among the clearest voices in the South Tyrolean gourmet choir. A menu that highlights the silent industriousness of the mountain people, an underground lab with hundreds of preserved products, and the ability to tell its story through family heritage. This is the story of a tiny fine dining "hidden" inside the family resort that makes the Fleres Valley famous, in an unspoiled town of 650 inhabitants.
Four-table room, a hamlet of 650 inhabitants and a parure of glaciers above 3,000 meters bejewel the panorama. To enter one of the world's smallest gourmets one must go as far as Val di Fleres, the last mountainous arena before the Brenner border, where the air has the wild fragrance of spruce trees and the streams glisten like liquid silver when the sun kisses the reliefs.
Right here, in Fleres, a hamlet of 650 vines against a National Geographic-esque alpine backdrop, stands the Feuerstein, a family resort whose entire dining offering passes through the industrious hands of Tina Marcelli. A single executive chef behind a convoy of formats pulled by Artifex, the hotel's flagship for the temper of concept and the tenor of application.
There is no Mediterranean fish crusted with Bronte pistachios flanked by wild herbs on the dinner plates; no packaged bread or well-known hazelnut spread in mignon size on the breakfast table. Tina is someone who makes her own speck, who pan-fries vegetables grown by her sister in the Aurina Valley, who after eating takes the guest to her “secret laboratory” to admire hundreds of jarred products-fermented, distilled apple, truffle-like turnips in bread crusts to scratch on noodles, and the list could go on and on without the certainty of exhausting the discourse with a complete list.
Tina does not do territory cooking. Tina asks the territory what she can cook. And the answer is a variable dependent on the food biodiversity that most of us have approached just via screen, between a convenient Google search and one too many questions to AI.
The hotel
The fine dining, as mentioned, is part of a whole called the Feuerstein - a children fiendly hotel that promises to solve in a click the equation of staying with toddlers in tow, abetted by a precise algorithm of childlike activities aimed at granting (also) adults their own relaxation spaces. The intent already leaks from the site, populated with “family album” style pictures of employees. And indeed, confirmation comes upon arrival, when receptionists team up to explain the path to the waterfalls reachable from the resort, turning the data check into a reunion of young hiking enthusiasts.
Sports aside, the compound encompasses a child-friendly hotel within a hotel, from the private pond with "pirate rafts" to the painting studio with Montessori-method tutors to the educational farm not far from the main building.
You wake up reading the daily schedule hanging in plain sight next to the elevator buttons, book a long massage for two in the 3,000-square-foot spa knowing that in the meantime the little ones are drawing giraffes with a team of patient educators (available 70 hours per week), and perhaps make a 6 p.m. appointment with a couple you met in the morning at the gym to sip all-inclusive aperitifs together. Dodging the “luxury village” effect is the naturalist design, as the forest goes right into the suite by focusing on the honesty of native materials.
In addition to the ritual wood, stone, wool and felt are in fact alternated there, coating the living room with an adventurous mood: the impression is that of a cabin with the benefit of ease (where, to say, those who systematically quarrel with the standard pillow can choose from 7 other assorted types). On the other hand, food immediately enters the wandering foodie's radar, thanks to the gaggle of single-portions set up on the bedside table upon arrival, ready to refresh hungry travelers with fresh fruit, tarts and lemon cheesecake.
It goes without saying that the scanning of meals traces the buffet model at both breakfast and lunch, gathering the first fruits of Tina's garden and of stoic farmers in the valley, as well as persuasive butters, cheeses, cured meats and leavened goods from mini-craft stores that preside over rural customs.
Chefs add hot dishes cooked in front of guests express, followed by the evening brings with it the wow-factor of a more structured, 5-step dinner at the guest's discretion (always with proper plant-based alternatives and an eye for babies).
The Artifex Gourmet
You might ask, at this point, what a gourmet restaurant is doing in a facility grafted onto the free recreation of families with children, albeit made ambitious by the 5-star blazon. The answer lies in the undivided solicitude for each diner, whether he or she wants to sample robust local pork or modern-style Tyrolean pastas to the haute cuisine ofArtifex. Tina and wife Kim Marcelli -bearers of the sign with an almost entirely female dream team- confirm this, inviting those who wish to let go of their scheduled commitments to enjoy 3 hours of slow dining alone.
Menu in hand, the main itinerary splits into 5- and 8-course courses (€95-140), plus the multiple-option dessert turn (subject to the savory cheese epilogue). All this in a room shaped in the image of the forest, with raised silhouettes of branches on the walls, floral compositions and pastel hues ascending the “hot” scale at dusk.
The dishes
It is an excursion among pastures and scrubland the first stage of the tasting, guided by the loose narrative of the brigade rushed to present it. And so the Caesar Salad ascends “chairlift” to the pastures, reinforced by the chef's house cheese with Parmigiano-like returns (but from a microcosm of its own); or, the crispy taco welcomes with open arms the last of the summer peas in dual forms-fresh and fermented-over an intense cream of raisins also propelled by fermentation inputs.
Parading on a green carpet are the sourdough loaf, potato bread and hand-ironed breadsticks, offered as a single course with the “guilty pleasure” of peasant butter, enhanced in a second slot by sauerkraut and chives.
Then stop, close your eyes and listen to the breath of the conifers: Tina uses fir oil to re-environment in her ecosystem the heifer happily born and raised above Bolzano. “I make a tartare with it of which I leave the sylvan flavor intact, out of total respect for the animal. Following my arrival at Feuerstein one of the inhabitants showed up with a crate of freshly picked flowers, so now I adorn them to garnish the meat. But for me they are not a decoration, they are the quiet voice of the valley speaking through its tenants."
Equally mild, yet pungent, is the balance of the Alpine Toast, cream of cave cheese, mushrooms. Yes, because street food here is a foray into the undergrowth, legs over your shoulder and basket on your arm. Suddenly champignon bursts in to share the soil scents with pulverized hay and burnt onion. Barley undergoing fermentation binds the ingredients in a turret of stacked memories: home dwellings at high altitude, the moisture of the earth, the sweetness of the poor product that at the stove is transformed into rare delight.
The umami shot coincides with the entry of Beef Consommé, an example of clever reuse of oxtail. “The only thing I waste is the 'head' to devise a dish, “ laughs the chef. “I'm always wary of those who systematically focus on filet or supposedly noble cuts. Instead, I follow the teachings of my grandmother, who extracted maximum nutritional value from protein." The result is a broth set to the fifth taste, the synthetic raviolo and the bao divertissement with red wine glazed ox to be eaten on the side. A continuous phase transition, from liquid to fluffy to creamy, which the excellent sommelier Alessio Scholl enhances with sips of sake by basting a remarkable pairing with the Hatsumago Densho Honjozo, the fruit of a blend of 10 different teas. Field trip to the meadow and gastric break: the goal is achieved with the Risotto of wild botanicals, mostly taken from the gourmet's garden and converted into a fragrant "bouquet al cucchiaio".
No vacuum for the superb Saddle of venison, scorzonera puree and cherry reduction, cooked in two tranches-"grilled and then in the oven at 60 degrees, on the advice of my chef father"-to give full justice to the wild moods. “I only process specimens from a breeder friend who cares for 23 head with 4 weeks of preventive maturation. He sends them to me when they are fully rested and I could never go the sous-vide route. I prefer to accentuate the timbre of the game.". The fragrance sneaks straight into the nostrils, the morsel advances rampantly in the sign of juicy jus.
“They say I resemble my grandfather, who unfortunately passed away two days before I was born,” Tina confesses. "I inherited his tenacity, perhaps some would call it stubbornness, however sincere. Over the years it seemed natural to dedicate a cake to him that encompasses his two lifelong passions." A short tablet video anticipates the serving of the cigar, fine chocolate shells trapping an ethereal memory. “We add vanilla ice cream and caramelized beer to prolong the sensations." Between the thin layers one can read the passion of pastry chef Sandra Kofler, the creator of a breakfast no less harmonious upon awakening along with Angela Martinelli's leavened pastries. Thank you Tina, your memory is now ours too.
Contact
Feuerstein Nature Family Resort - Artifex Gourmet
Fleres, 185, 39041 Brennero, Autonomous Province of Bolzano - South Tyrol
Telephone: 0472 770126
