Love for excellence

Basic ingredients for unique tastes

The monastic orders, the monasteries and convents are hundreds in our country, scattered in the hills, in the most beautiful in Italy, often perched on picturesque hills; convents are islands where it is still possible to live far from the frantic pace of city life and which has been handed down for generations the worship of a simple table, linked to produce, animals reared in the yard and in the fruits and herbs that grow naturally.

Around the nuns and monks grew the fame of mystics and severe fasters, instead just behind the high walls of the monasteries developed the cult of good food, a type of power simple, healthy and natural, tied to seasonal products.

The kitchen of the monasteries is the result of disparate experiences interregional, intuitions, is the mirror of wise habits and traditions perpetrated always.

At the restaurant La Badessa we followed - since 1996 - this idea, "the cuisine of monasteries", collecting countless recipes old and new, gift and research to interpret this unique cuisine, why do not you forget it, and why it continues to live in our dishes every day we offer our customers to surprise them with ease.

The Chef

Ardit Grembi when was very young begins his studies and experiences in Italy and abroad.
Enfant Prodige chef, demonstrates his skills right away with creativity and experimentation, drawing on Italian cuisine and his country.

He worked in several restaurants with starred chefs demonstrating ability and passion to reinterpret the tradition with personality.

our menus

The dishes we here wish to propose, all come from a patient research and the kind contribution of many religious who, from every corner of Piedmont and Italy, wanted to give us advice and recipes, which since always form part of such a genuine tradition as monasteries cooking's.

• Menù alla Carta
• Pura tradizione
• Menu Vegetariano

MARIA CATERINA OPERTI DI CERVASCA

"La Badessa", the Abbess, was named after a woman really existed in the past century, Maria Caterina Operti of Cervasca. We learn about her extraordinary life thanks to the recovery of the Abbess' diary and portrait, which started the search for historical facts and figures about her. She was born on the 22nd of June, 1801 in the ancient marquisate of Saluzzo. Her father, the nobleman Guglielmo, a relative of Silvestro, Abbot of Altacomba and direct descendant of Marquis Ludovico II of Saluzzo, made his last born, Maria Caterina, embrace monastic life, not to disperse his assets among his nine children. At the age of 18, Maria Caterina pronounced the monastic vows in the convent of Rifreddo, taking the name of Sister Costanza. Thanks to her noble origins, after many years she was transferred to the Monastery of SS. Annunziata of Saluzzo, as the Mother Abbess, at that time old and sick, was going to soon depart. Infact, the old Abbess died few months later and gave Sister Costanza the opportunity to become …La Badessa, the Abbess

Around 1831, during Mazzini's uprisings, Mother Costanza met a soldier whose name is unknown. He was taken to the monastery with other wounded and this meeting marked the beginning of a great love. The deep passion induced the religious to leave the monastery and follow the soldier. For a long time she accepted to work as a sutler to stay close to the soldier. Hectic years went by between taverns and bivouacs, battles and adventures till the death of the beloved.

Subsequently, she went to Turin, where she found a job in the Great Kitchen of the Savoyard Court, hiding her real identity for many years. She gained a great experience in the refined Court Kitchen, where she was quickly upgraded to finally become personal chef of the Queen Maria Theresa of Austria, wife of Charles Albert, King of Sardinia, and it was the Archduchess herself, after discovering Costanza's noble origins, to convince and help her return to the convent to take back her role as the Abbess, with the forgiveness and blessing of the Church . In the following years, as she was older, the Abbess was known for her exquisite for receptions of noblemen and high prelate who went to the convent for praying and on spiritual retreat, and tasted unique dishes prepared to perfection, resulting from her past experiences between the simplicity of a bivouac and the King's court.