02/12/2024: Mas Del Saro can be reached from Pergine Valsugana by first taking the road that leads to Sant'Orsola and then the provincial road that leads to Baselga di Pinè, on which after 5/6 curves you turn right onto a road that ends right in front of the Maso. You can't find it by chance, but you have to want to get there. Not an impossible feat anyway.
You immediately notice the vegetable garden with its greenhouse and the black cabbage which we actually tasted afterwards, a pergola with a table which is where you can eat in the summer when the weather allows it, and it must be nice to be at the table, the hives, the door that leads to the restaurant room. Which was chosen by Giulia, my partner, identified following indications that tell of a special, peaceful place, animated by people who are radically passionate and dedicated to their work. A commitment made of welcome, restitution/testimony of mountain life, authentic seasonal cuisine with home-produced ingredients, meeting. What a family needs after a long day spent between the glittering circus of the Merano Wine Festival (the father, that is, the writer) and the Merano Thermal Baths (the rest of the family and then also the father) and before returning home .
What we found was exactly what had persuaded us to go in the stories.
Vea, cook and expert baker, and Dario, mountain and wine enthusiast as well as Bauer del Maso, are participating and discreet guests in guiding through the proposed itinerary which, made up of dishes with flavors that to define simple is perhaps an understatement and which therefore I could define "carefully simple" and above all clear, the taste is entirely evident, from the opening dish to the artisanal mountain pine liqueur, a hymn to the truthfulness of the ingredients and to the creativity of a cuisine that is not poor, but deliberately pertaining to a tradition in which abundance was certainly not the protagonist.
The menu therefore included Pinsotti with speck and lard from neighboring companies and "live" cabbage seasoned with apple vinegar, a truly tasty black cabbage and bean soup that betrays a part of Tuscanness, the button stuffed with guinea fowl in vegetable broth and lovage which is rigorous, melting and delicate, the buckwheat crumble with vegetables and pork which mixes flavors and textures with lightness and naturalness.
The proposal is completed by a selection of territorial and quality-oriented wines with fair prices. Just as fair, I find the price of the menu plus the not very common merit of clarity.
Memorable at the time of the digestive, even if it has nothing to do with eating, is the sudden change in brightness due to the disappearance of the sun behind the hill that flanks the Maso.
07/09/2024: Siamo stati per la prima volta, incuriositi dalle recensioni positive e dalle immagini dei piatti. L’esperienza ha confermato le nostre aspettative. L’ambiente è molto curato, intimo e familiare, l’accoglienza calorosa ma discreta. I piatti sono curati, realizzati con materie prime di grande qualità prodotte direttamente da loro. Il menù degustazione del momento era prevalentemente vegetariano e, per noi che amiamo la carne, è stata una sorpresa il risultato così appagante sia a livello di sapori che di sazietà.
Siamo stati molto soddisfatti e consigliamo questo luogo a chi sa apprezzare l’autenticità e la passione con cui è stato concepito questo agriturismo.