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MAGAZINE Februar y/March 2025 hotels that witnessed its birth. As I watch a vaporetto (ferry) cross the lake, Presazzi takes a Japanese child by the hand and accompa- nies her through the delights of the buffet. It's hard not to believe him when he tells me that uniqueness, familiarity and togetherness are the watchwords of the Grand Hotel's hospitality system, which literally takes you by the hand. Breakfast is unique for the wealth of products, the grandeur of the buffet, the beauty of the lake and the hotel rooms. ‘Our kitchen is open,’ continues Presazzi. ‘ Guests come in, interact with the brigade, look around and spend time with us. This creates an intimacy after just a few words that leaves a lasting impression. We have guests who frequent luxury establishments all over the world ... and only at the Grand Hotel do they say they feel like part of a family. It may seem strange to you, but after finishing our service at the tables on the Terrazza Marchesi, we all have a drink together, we play bowling, five-a-side football is a lot of fun ... after 14 hours in the kitchen, if this atmosphere doesn't exist, it becomes impossible to work. A stressed-out brigade produces stressed-out, imperfect dishes'. And Presazzi's cuisine aims to be precise. “It's not so much about inventing an iconic dish but standardising it: this is the skill of a Chef... he can do it well once but to educate emotions to align them neatly, without losing their brilliance, is talent”. Just as talented is the goat's milk Gorgonzola by Carozzi, gold medal winner at the World Cheese Awards, or the Delfino Battista anchovies from Cetara, canned one by one with masterful manual skill. Or the Nuvola di Como, a very light leavened cake with a centre of apricot cream, and the Lariano di Dongo. The breakfast buffet is a string of sam- ples and you can lose yourself in the recital of its Mysteries with devotion. One of these is the mostarda from Cremona, which I never find at breakfast, with mixed fruit cut into large pieces or left whole, which Edith Templeton described as ‘an extremely refined dish, a baroque dish, sweet, full-bodied, fiery and spicy’, if only for the medieval origin of this mustum ardens which over time has moved away from grapes. Losing oneself, to find oneself in the family. GRAND HOTEL VILLA SERBELLONI ‘I don't want to be boastful, but our buffet has everything’ - these are the opening words of Luca Speroni , Restaurant Manager at Villa Serbelloni. ‘With the buffet or the express ser- vice, we want to satisfy every need. We have an international clientele, mainly British and American, and a growing Asian market, in line with the popularity of Lake Como and Bellagio in particular. Italians are an exception, especially in the summer season when we welcome many families with children. The nutritional needs of children take precedence over those of their parents. This changes the horizon of interest in the culinary offer and redirects the target au- dience of our cuisine. The focus is on the Lario area which, in its own small way, is a wealth of excellence that can sometimes be surprising. However, as we have an international clientele, we feel it is right that the search for quality linked to the genius loci of Lake Como and its valleys should go beyond the sometimes limiting concept of locally sourced ingredients, leading to familiar products from Italy and the rest of the world in which guests can recognise the use and meaning. Alongside Miascia, a traditional Bellagio flatbread, we have Don Sousa foie gras, prawns and scampi from Mazara del Vallo, and ‘des prés-salés’ lamb that grazes in the herbus (pastures) regularly covered by the sea. Our cuisine has a soft gourmet approach in all services. We are the ‘fine dining’ restaurant of a hotel and out of respect for our guests we have to be less avant-garde in order to please everyo- ne, not just foodies. This doesn't mean that a sense of proportion leads us to less experimen- tation and a compromise in terms of excellence. We are still under the direction of Executive Chef Ettore Bocchia , researcher and pioneer of new solutions for culinary excellence. Founder of Italian molecular cuisine, Ettore has authorised the use of liquid nitrogen in the in- stant preparation of ice cream, he fries in melted sugars without fat, he substitutes soy lecithin for eggs in the preparation of mayonnaise and fresh pasta, he uses inulin as a stabiliser in fo- ods that need to be crisp even in conditions of high humidity. The lake, with its gentle shores, lives in a relaxed dimension of time. It loves progress with the right amount of excitement but doesn't like to be disturbed by too much noisy innovation. THERASIA RESORT SEA & SPA The location is breathtaking. Lipari, the Aeolian Islands at dawn, the Mediterranean sleeping pe- acefully while you sip an espresso overlooking the sea. The breakfast at the Therasia offers a wide selection of top-quality products, with the fragrant aroma of freshly baked Sicilian bread. Taste, tradition and innovation come together in a unique buffet with a rich selection of breads, brioches, croissants and other baked goods made with sourdough or liquid cultures. The dessert display varies from artisan biscuits to cakes and other Sicilian specialities prepared with high quality ingredients, an added value thanks to the absence of gluten and lactose and the use of Sicilian olive oil. The savoury selection includes freshly baked products of the day, including Sicilian arancini in four gluten- and lactose-free versions that are true to the authentic flavour. Therasia Pastry Chef Gianluca Coluccu makes no secret of his preference for natural sweeteners such as fruit juice over re- fined sugar, and of his use of Sicilian semolina, whole wheat flour and spelt flour, which results in a tasty and easily digestible product that is rich in fibre and protein. ‘We work a lot with the territory in terms of social ethics, sustainability and nutritional content. The bakery allows us to use ingredients from other processes such as olives, chocolate, spices and vegetables. This way, bread-making optimises the pantry and re- duces waste. Working on Vulcano has its beauty, but the island is small and demanding. Due to the high temperatures, we struggle to make cho- colate products. But we are adapting. Creating temperature-controlled rooms to avoid stressing the chocolate is possible but not sustainable. We live with a fragile ecosystem. We can't, and don't, want to allow ourselves any excesses. We collect rainwater to irrigate the vegetable garden; we use renewable and photovoltaic energy. This is what the owners, the Politos of Imperatore Travel and the Botania Relais & Spa in Ischia, want. Despite this friendly approach, our breakfast has character. It becomes a cultu- ral expression, an educational element through which we bring the guest closer to the territory, a breakfast that becomes a guide and therefore does not allow itself to be guided’. GRAND HOTEL TREMEZZO The Grand Hotel Tremezzo, owned by the Mal- lone-De Santis family, is not just a hotel, but an Italian family story. ‘Our mission is to make you feel at home’, starting with breakfast served on the Gualtiero Marchesi Terrace, overlooking the lake. Thanks to Executive Chef Osvaldo Presazzi , a long period of honing his skills with Marchesi in Erbusco and at Marchesino before inheriting the dishes from the Maestro's histori- cal archive and serving them with style on the beautiful Terrace. Haute cuisine, as Marchesi recalled, cannot be separated from the great X