25 years ago thinking that a masseria could be a place for hospitality and restaurant was a crazy idea, but not crazy enough for Rosalba e Armando Balestrazzi. Following an intuition the couple with her daughter Serenella, have been searching for three years the right place to realize the dream of a place that could preserve and pass on the traditions of the territory.

Finally, the revelation: a sixteenth farmhouse built among the ancient olive trees in the countryside of Ostuni, upon an ancient underground cave called ipogeo. Masseria Il Frantoio was inhabited by Tanzarella family, which has been the owner for 500 years until the arrival of Balestrazzi.

Time has left its mark in the architecture of the Masseria Il Frantoio, which has expanded bit by bit in every century, creating a rare combination of style. But Balestrazzi family wrote history by creating the first touristic Masseria in Puglia all focused on local wealth with a zero km cuisine and the proposal of an experience designed for few people but very high quality. In fact there are only 25 beds in the hotel and 55 seats in the restaurant, a small number of guests but each one treated as a part of the family. A concept that will explode only after many years in Italy and in the world.

After 25 years the Masseria il Frantoio is still this: not just a hotel but an abode, not a restaurant with chef but a moms kitchen, not a museum but a living home. And it is also much more than that. It is the living testimony of knowledge that have made the Mediterranean culture: just walk in Italian style garden or in the ancient citrus grove built in the Arab techniques to realize this. Masseria il Frantoio is not a place of history, it is History that continues to become present and spreads its roots for the future.