01
A morning in the gardens
Three hundred acres run from the borgo to the farm. The kitchen gardens are the part most rooms eat from — walk them once before breakfast and the menu reads like a path.
Tuscany · near Siena
Borgo Santo Pietro
A thirteenth-century borgo on three hundred Tuscan acres, with a working biodynamic farm, Ariel Hagen's Saporium at its centre, and a spa cut from the same stone as the village.
The verdict
A village taken whole, kept on a working estate that feeds its own kitchens. Ariel Hagen at Saporium is reason enough; the gardens, the herd, and the spa cut from old stone are why a long week starts to feel short.
From the editors · Vedere House
The particulars
- Style
- Restored thirteenth-century borgo on a working biodynamic estate
- Estate
- Roughly three hundred acres — village, farm, gardens, herds and woodland
- Suites
- 22 — many with private pools and outdoor fireplaces
- Tables
- Saporium, soil-to-plate by Ariel Hagen; Trattoria sull'Albero, around the tree
- Spa
- Seed to Skin — the estate's own apothecary, with a stone treatment suite
- Best for
- A long week between the gardens and the table
- Season
- April through October; the gardens loudest in late May and September
Borgo Santo Pietro is a village rebuilt as a hotel — a thirteenth-century borgo, restored slowly over the past two decades, set on three hundred acres of Tuscan farmland between Siena and the coast. The estate is the property's first quality: an organic farm with its own kitchen gardens, herds, dairy and apothecary, kept by the same people who set the table later in the evening.
The kitchen is run by Ariel Hagen at Saporium — a stone loggia opening onto the valley, soil-to-plate in the literal sense, and one of the longer dinners in this part of the country. Trattoria sull'Albero, built around a tree at the centre of the room, keeps the simpler menu and the noisier table. The cellar runs deep on Tuscan growers; the gardens supply the rest.
Seed to Skin, the property's own herbal apothecary, sits in a stone-vaulted room of the borgo and offers the slowest hour of the day. The pool looks south over the hills; the suites — many with private pools — are scattered through the village so no two arrivals look the same. The nearest train is at Siena; the journey to the gate from there is almost the point.
Signature moments
02
Dinner at Saporium
A stone loggia opens onto the valley. Ariel Hagen writes the menu from what came out of the gardens that day — soil-to-plate, in the proper sense — and the room arranges the rest of the evening.
03
An hour at Seed to Skin
The spa lives in a stone-vaulted room of the borgo, candles set on the old hearth, the herbal preparations bottled here and used here. An afternoon ends quietly, whether or not you mean it to.
Inside the house
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