From approx. €230 a night · best value Nov
A former winery between Mount Etna and the Ionian Sea, with sixteen rooms among citrus groves and a Michelin-starred restaurant in the old palmento.
The house is best value in November, from approx. €230 a night. It is most expensive in June and August and September, up to approx. €500.
NovemberBest value
Typically €220–260 a night
Around 54% less than in June
Climate16 °C by day, 11 °C at night · about 9 rainy days
Check a date in November with the hotelOpens the hotel’s booking page with 2 nights in this month. You book there.
Google Flights shows connections and current prices. A planning aid for you; CINCIN earns nothing from it. Driving times without traffic.
ZASH stands in citrus groves near Archi, a hamlet above Riposto on Sicily's east coast, with Etna rising behind it and the Ionian Sea below. The old manor house, wine cellar and palmento have kept their lava-stone walls and vaults, and newer glass-walled villas sit among the trees around them.
The estate has belonged to the Maugeri family since the 1930s. Vines once grew here too, but since the 1960s it has been mainly citrus. Architect Antonio Iraci, working with Carla Maugeri, turned the buildings into a hotel with sixteen rooms: some beneath the vaults of the manor house, some in the former cellar, others in villas among the citrus trees. The restaurant and lounge bar are in the old palmento, the building where grapes were once pressed and the wine fermented. Giuseppe Raciti has led the kitchen since 2014 and has held a Michelin star since 2019; the wine list focuses on Etna producers.
Architecture by Antonio Iraci
The conversion, completed in 2011, kept the lava-stone walls, old plaster and wine presses of the manor house and palmento, and added white, pared-back rooms in the cellar and glass-walled villas in the garden.
The whole hotel
One Michelin star since 2019
At 22, Giuseppe Raciti cooked under Ezio Santin, and a year later with Massimo Mantarro at Principe Cerami in Taormina. He took over the kitchen at ZASH in 2014; the Michelin star followed in 2019.
The whole hotel
Sauna, Turkish bath and lava stone
The spa area, free for hotel guests, has a sauna, a Turkish bath and an indoor pool set against a wall of Etna lava stone, with massages and treatments on request.
The whole hotel
Historic Room
On the first floor of the old manor house, 35 to 40 m², with high vaulted ceilings and full-length chestnut windows, looking towards Mount Etna or the Ionian Sea.
Iconic Room
In the former wine cellar: white, pared-back rooms set against the original volcanic stone walls.
Blend Room
Lava-stone details at the headboard and in the bathroom.
Unique Suite
A larger suite with oak floors and an open layout, the living and sleeping areas running into one another with hardly any partition.
Pool Villa
A villa among the citrus trees, a few steps from the hotel pool, with large windows onto its own garden.
Pool Villa & SPA
A villa among the orange trees with its own small spa, a private sauna and Turkish bath, and a terrace.
ZASH lies near Archi above Riposto on Sicily's east coast, on the "sciara", the cooled lava of Mount Etna, where citrus and olive trees grow. The nearest beaches are 1.7 km away and Riposto harbour 3.6 km. Catania is about 31 km away and its airport about 45 km; Taormina and Piano Provenzana, on Etna's northern slope, are each about 33 km. Within reach: the Alcantara gorges, baroque Acireale and Catania, and the Etna wineries.
Ristorante Zash · 1 Michelin star
The small restaurant sits in and around the old vat where the wine once fermented, beneath vaults of limestone and pumice, a stone from the volcano. Giuseppe Raciti cooks Sicilian food in a modern way, built on local produce.
Pool Bar & Summer Terrace
Aperitivo facing Mount Etna, with Sicilian and international wines from the cellar and small plates, in the lounge bar in the old palmento, on one of the terraces or at the pool bar in the citrus grove.
Fish trattoria · Santa Maria la Scala · approx. 20 min by car
A handful of tables inside a lava-stone grotto, right on the little fishing harbour of Santa Maria la Scala below Acireale. The kitchen cooks only what the boats bring in that day: you choose the fish or shellfish, it is weighed and cooked simply, and in summer there are tables outside too.
Wine restaurant · Solicchiata · approx. 40 min by car
In Solicchiata, on Etna's northern slope, Sandro Dibella turned his family's old palmento, the stone wine-press house, into a restaurant; his father ran the Bar Grotta Bue nearby. Expect wood-fired pizza from long-proved dough, house-made pasta such as fusilloni with pistachio, grilled meat and a long list of Etna wines.
Restaurant · Linguaglossa · approx. 30 min by car
Giovanni Santoro, born in Linguaglossa in 1983, cooks in a palazzo in the centre of his home town that has been a small hotel for ten years. He serves several tasting menus, among them 'Mongibello', with porcini, Etna juniper and barbecued lamb, and 'Genti di Mare', with amberjack and cuttlefish.
Wine bar and osteria · Riposto · approx. 10 min by car
A wine shop and osteria on Corso Italia in Riposto, its shelves full of bottles from Etna, the rest of Italy and natural-wine growers. With your glass come small plates such as red-prawn tartare with pesto and burrata, and house-made desserts.
Chosen by CINCIN, not paid for. Travel times are approximate. Opening hours and menus change, so please check with the venue before you go.
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