Royal Ischia™

Imagine 3 World Class Chefs in professional Mediterranean kitchen teaching you! This is our Royal Ischia program where the talented Luigi Castagna, Pasquale Palamaro-both Executive Chefs and Assuntina, Executive Pasty Chef cook up a storm for your Mediterranean cooking program. The renowned hotel, winner of accolades from Michelin and Gambero Rosso, promise a magnificent cooking & relaxation vacation you will never forget. Your program includes a full-menu cooking class, as well as a dessert-making workshop and beauty treatments with natural healing properties only on the Island of Ischia. This program caters to healthy well-being cooking. It also immerses you into natural spa treatments uniquely offered on Ischia with natural thermal springs, nutritive floras, sea salts, herbs & muds indigenous only to Ischia. The Island is a natural for healthy eating, the Mediterranean diet, and the natural thermal springs & spas.

Cooking Classes

Your cooking classes are held in the 5 Star hotel’s professional kitchen. Chefs Luigi & Pasquale and Pastry Chef Assuntina are your teachers for your hands-on classes. Each cooking class features traditional dishes from Ischitan and Neapolitan cooking styles a delicious healthy ingredients. The full menu includes an antipasto, pasta, main and dessert. And Pastry Chef Assuntina will have you making 5 star desserts. After class, lunch or dinner follows with the foods prepared in class (or tastings after the dessert class).

Ischia is known for its signature dish coniglio alla ischitana, rabbit cooked in white wine and tomato, and the result is nothing short of exquisite. However, if rabbit is not your fancy, seafood such as anchovies, octopus, calamari, totani, a local squid, scorpion fish, mussels, clams, lobster, and other local Mediterranean varieties are used in a plethora of traditional dishes. But Ischia’s nickname is L’Isola Verde, The Green Island, and true to its name, fruits and vegetables grow in abundance and anyone who loves their greens will appreciate the pizza di scarola, escarole wrapped in a pizza-dough crust, peperonata, red and yellow peppers with capers and olives, borlotti con zucca, borlotti bean and pumpkin soup to name but a few examples.

Mediterranean cooking combines the finest ingredients to provide a healthy and balanced diet for your Ischia experience. Our chefs use local produce and ingredients to offer dishes based on fresh fish, together with a wonderful variety of vegetables, salads and fruit. In the finest Italian tradition, fresh and light foods do not mean sacrificing taste, as recipes use extra virgin, first cold pressed, olive oil to exalt the delicious natural flavors of foods, rather than hiding them under heavy sauces.

The hotel boasts a vast wine cellar of outstanding Italian and international wines, and for those interested, a carefully chosen selection of cigars, stored at precisely the right temperature and humidity level.

Ischia

Since the Roman Empire, the natural thermal springs of Ischia have attracted those needing the healing powers of these natural spas. Ischia being a volcanic island and with Mount Vesuvius so close by, attributes for the natural steam, sulfuric waters natural hot, mineral-rich springs that run through its landscape.

Ischia’s every stone which lays on island reflects is 2,700 years of history and traditions. The island, the largest island in the Bay of Naples, offers several interesting places to visit, including, Gerone’s Aragonese Castle, dating from 474 BC, and the Archaeological Museum of Pithecusae. Moving from ancient times to modernity, La Colombaia, summer residence of the film director Luchino Visconti, has now been transformed into an International Cultural Centre, well worth a visit. And for walkers and nature lovers, visit the Maddalena woods and Mount Epomeo, along with the magnificent gardens of La Mortella, created by the English composer William Walton.

Each year, the hotel hosts the Ischia Global Film & Music Fest, attracting celebrities from all over the world. 2008’s Fest was dedicated to Japanese films, and on the program for 2009 is South Africa, chaired by the Oscar winning director of the 2006 film Crash, Paul Haggis.

Spa~ For Body & Soul

The waters of Lacco Ameno are known for their regenerative and therapeutic properties. The hyperthermal springs of Lacco Ameno at about 175 degrees F, are rich in chlorites, sodium, bicarbonate, sulphites and magnesium. The fango, mud, from the springs, gathered from the natural caves, is allowed to remain for about six months in the thermal waters where it absorbs minerals and develops medicinal qualities.

The hotel’s award-winning spa offers an ample range of treatments including essential oil massages, mud therapy, thermal vapor for the respiratory system, osteopathic treatments for bone and joint health, physical therapy and rehabilitation, mind and body balance, facials, vein and skin treatments, lymph drainage and more.

With so many treatments available, the only dilemma is which wonderful therapy to indulge in. However, the hotel’s knowledgeable staff will start with a simple consultation in order to suggest the best and most beneficial treatments for you based on your needs and wishes, and your program includes a weekend Thermal Treatment package.

Accommodations

Angelo Rizzoli, Italian publisher and film producer, founded this 5-star luxury hotel in the 1950s, attracting stars and exuding glamour at the height of the golden years of Italian film-making. Rizzoli later founded the Rizzoli International bookstore on Fifth Avenue in New York, which has been featured in Woody Allen’s film, Manhattan, and in Falling In Love, with Robert DeNiro & Meryl Streep.

The island of Ischia with its thermal springs enchanted Rizzoli, therefore with his fortune and fame decided to build the hotel on an ancient site of Greek-Roman ruins in the quarter called Lacco Ameno. Over the years, the hotel has been host to Richard Burton, Liz Taylor, Maria Callas, Alberto Sordi, William Hoden and more.

Everywhere you look, you are reminded of Rizzoli’s pursuit of beauty, with bright and majestic spaces decorated with genuine Capodimonte and hand-painted majolica ceramic floors, Naples patrician-style furniture and Murano glass chandeliers. Modern design features and contemporary art complement the classic 1950s-style décor.

Guests may enjoy a bath in luxury in any of the hotel’s four swimming pools; each with features to help you relax entirely. The waters of one of the pools are purified sea water, one is hydrothermal, one pool for thalassotherapy and the Sensual Revival pool offers music, color and aromatherapy.

Each bedroom has a private bathroom and modern amenities including air conditioning, satellite radio and TV, safe, minibar, telephone with direct international dialing and high speed internet connection. Terraces and common areas in the hotel offer high speed Wi-Fi internet as well.

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Itinerary: 3 Days, 2 Nights

This program is available April to November, except ferragosto during August –check with us for exact dates. You can check in and start your program on any day of the week.

Day 1: Arrival & Pastry Lesson, Welcome Dinner

• Arrival & Check in to your luxury hotel
• Settle in and enjoy your welcome cocktail
• Possible time for Massage Spa. To be scheduled upon arrival.
• Meet the hotel’s incredible pastry chef for your hands-on Pastry Lesson with Pasticciera, pastry chef, Assuntina.
• Dinner follows in the evening, and enjoy the desserts made in class at the end of your meal. Wine not included.

Day 2: Excursion Of Your Choice & Cooking Class

• Breakfast is served.
• Morning excursion of your choice. You may choose one:Visit To The Ischitan Wine Cellars, learn about the wines grown on the ‘Green Island’ during a visit to this noted cantina. Wine tasting included.Market Visit to the local morning market. Explore the varieties of fresh fruits and vegetables in season, as well as fish, meats, freshly made cheeses and more.Limoncello Factory, learn the process for making this unique lemon liquor from the Campania region, possible thanks to the variety of thick-skinned fragrant lemon that grows abundantly in the area. Tasting included.Fishing Trip, Excursion by private local fishing boat for a morning of fishing with our captain. Find out about local fish that can be caught in the waters of Ischia, and, of course, the best way to cook them in the kitchen.
• Lunch on your own.
• Possible time for Massage or Spa in the afternoon.
• Return to the hotel in the afternoon for your hands-on Cooking Class with the expert guidance of Chefs Luigi & Pasquale.
• Dinner follows on the foods prepared in class. Wine not included.

Day 3: Departure & Arrivederci!

• Breakfast is served.
• Possible time for Massage or Spa.
• Check out & departure.