The Italian Gordon Ramsay“ is a description that Antonino Cannavacciuolo doesn’t much like, although he would never be rude enough to say so. Because although the Sorrentine restaurateur presents Cucine da Incubo- Italy’s version of Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares- and is a longstanding judge on MasterChef Italia, it’s his role as a hotelier and celebrated chef that he most values. And the idea of him telling a guest to „get the f*** out of my kitchen“ is clearly unthinkable.

It’s hard to imagine voices ever raised in anger at Cannavacciuolo’s Bistrot at Laqua by the Lake, an upmarket resort on the shores of Lake Orta, about 50 miles northwest of Milan. This collection of 16 one and two-bedroom apartments and two penthouses that opened in July 2021 offers „absolute privacy“ – and the timely possibility for self-isolation – paired with luxury-hotel services and a restaurant that celebrates the best of regi on al produce.

It is a far cry from Villa Crespi, Cannavacciuolo’s eccentric Moorish palace-hotel five minutes‘ drive away where his high-end cuisine has earned two of the five Michelin stars awarded to his restaurants, and the atmosphere is one of quiet formality. „I wanted Laqua to feel contemporary, a fusion of design and nature,“ he says, „a piace where guests can feel as if they were at home. That’s why we have apartments. And this piace is where my family and I live too.“ Laqua, which will reopen at the end of March after a three-month break, is a modemist vision of sheet glass, dark wood and cream concrete designed by the local architects Studio Primatesta, yet it looks surprisingly at home in this traditional lakeside landscape. Previously a hotchpotch of building styles that combined to form a family hotel dating from the 1950s, the structure took two years to transform – a bold venture at a time when the region, which relies heavily on tourism, was brought almost to its knees by the pandemie.

„We were facing an epic moment in history,“ Cannavacciuolo says, „so we stayed true to our roots. We carne home and celebrated the piace we love best.“ There’s certainly a welcoming feel as the tyres of Laqua’s Mercedes, which picked me up from the airport, crunch into the gravel drive way past midnight. The garden twinkles with fairy lights strung between the trees and a liveried concierge hurries out of the vast front door. He ushers me to my apartment, No 9, which is low-lit sexy and smells almost edible. The last thing I sense as my head hits the pillow is the sound of absolute silence. The next morning there’s a chili in the air and the promise of sun, which has not yet managed to rise above the peak of Mottarone, at 1,492 metres the highest point around the lake. Breakfast can be delivered to individuai apartment kitchens but I head to the low-rise restaurant pavilion Bistrot, a stroll across the garden, with doors opening on to the pool and infinite views to the lake beyond. In summer there are eboats, waterskiing, paddleboarding and wakeboarding available to guests from the sandy beach. Today one hardy soul swims from the jetty, but no self-respecting Italian will get in the water until at least July.

Breakfast is heavy on regional specialities (chocolate cream and butter from Piedmont; San Daniele ham from Friuli; mozzarella from Campania; bread and pastries from the Bistrot’s ovens) and it’s a relief to see that here they have moved away from the overblown breakfast buffet of pre-pandemic days. Orders are brought swiftly to the table, and the service – from a team of crisply dressed young people – is quietly solicitous.

My one-bedroom apartment has its own tiny terrace and gardens with views to the mountains beyond, but the real knockout vistas are from the two penthouse suites. Cantilevered over the lake, each has a wall of floor-to-ceiling glass that slides back to bring in the vast deck, and your hot tub – or, should you prefer, take your sitting room outside. Interiors are by Cinzia Primatesta, Cannavacciuolo’s wife and business partner, who has combined desaturated colours with organic shapes and natural finishes to produce the kind of harmonious whole that looks simple enough but you know has costa fortune. There are no big-name designers here: instead, kitchen cupboards, tables, bookcases and beds are made to order in brushed spruce and blackened iron, while smaller pieces are from the furniture-makers Riva 1920, based in nearby Cantu. The palest of travertine on walls and floors, dark bathroom fittings by Gessi and white linens wherever you look give a sense of stripped-back luxe.

A private chef is available for the duration of your stay- sadly, not the big man, who is far too busy- along with a concierge service, hot-and-cold running cryotherapists from the Longevity Suite spa downstairs, and yoga and Pilates instructors on call seven days a week. So it’s no surprise that, despite the pandemie, Laqua’s first few months saw a crowd of Milanesi flee the sweltering city to spend summer by Italy’s loveliest little lake, 8 miles long by I½ miles wide. It’s the treasures of this lake – which the Milanesi call La Cenerentola, a Cinderella to her uglier sisters, Maggiore and Como – that the art historian and guide Cosetta Dal Cin reveals to me later that day. We start from the dock-side in the medieval village of Orta San Giulio, where locals in head-to-toe Moncler eat lunch in a patch of sunshine outside the Piccolo Bar. In a water taxi piloted by Paolo, we make for Isola San Giulio, a tiny island that they say was ruled by a dragon unti I the saint drove him off in AD390. It is now home to 75 cloistered Benedictine nuns, a Welsh poet and a handful of wealthy Swiss weekenders.

The sisters, whose singing on Sundays in the 12th-century Basilica di San Giulio is audible on the mainland, have created a footpath, the Via del Silenzio, around the perimeter of the island; visitors are counselled to „meditate on the silence“, along with the misty views a cross the lake to the mountains beyond. In the basilica a palimpsest of still-bright frescoes, overlaid by I6th-century Latin graffiti, are a fascinating snapshot of ecclesiastical life. Back in the piazza of Orta San Giulio we lunch under the arches of the Leon d’Oro, where the sun doesn’t qui te reach.

I swerve the tapulone, a donkey ragu, in favour of a buttery polenta with Torna Piemontese cheese and foie gras. Afterwards we walk the narrow streets, with Dal Cin pointing out proud palazzi and the tiniest of jewelbox chapels, their frescoes faded by 700 years of moisture from the lake. At deli Il Buongustaio we get a rapturous welcome from Giovanni, the proprietor, who tells me he hasn’t seen an English visitor since long before the pandemie. „I miss them,“ he says. „Ali we get is Italians now.“ A brisk 20-minute walk uphill and down brings us to the foot of the Sacro Monte di Orta, one of the nine „sacred mountains“ of Piedmont and Lombardy included in Unesco’s world heritage list. Although these are devotional complexes (this one, surrounded by woodland, is a series of 20 exquisitely decorated chapels from the 1600s marking the life of St Francis of Assisi) they should not be written off as ecclesiastica! follies, Dal Cin says. „They are works of art in their own right, and the frescoes and statues in here were used to tel1 a story, as 90 per cent of the population were probably illiterate back then.“

In Cappe11a XX, a „little Sistine Chapel“, the canonisation of St Francis is represented by terracotta figures in scenes of such dynamism that it’s impossible not to be transported. At the foot of the mountain a concierge from Villa Crespi is waiting to take me back to Laqua in Cannavacciuolo’s 4×4. „He sent me to get you so you wouldn’t be late for dinner,“ he says. I’m pretty sure he’s notjoking. At 7.30pm sharp I’m at my window table in the stripped-back Bistrot. Outside, a fire pit burns by the lake, spitting bright cinders on to a vast linen-covered banquette.

The floodlights of Madonna del Sasso, high on a spur on the apposite shore, are pinpricks in the darkness. There’s no Ramsay-style shouting from the Bistrot kitchen, at least none that I can hear. A procession of handsome dishes, borne by equally handsome waiting staff, arrive at my table: celeriac three ways; bread, butter and anchovies; linguine with lobster; sea bass with turnip greens; and Cannavacciuolo’s signature sfogliatelle. The simplicity of the names is in inverse proporti on to the effort that has gone into the preparation of these dishes. Of course, dinner is a triumph – and I’m not just saying that because there’s 6ft 3in of scary-looking chef aver my shoulder. Far Cannavacciuolo it’s a question of priorities. Gian Carlo Primatesta, Laqua’s architect, puts it best. „As a client, he is completely non-intrusive. He never interferes at all … well, only in the kitchen.“

Mia Aimaro Ogden was a guest of Laqua by the Lake, which has B&B double apartments from E220 (Jaquaresorts.it). A half-day tour with Cosetta Dal Cin starts at EJOO (ortaeoltre.it). Fly to Milan Malpensa.

Three more stays on Lake Orta

CasaF antini/LakeT ime

On Lake Orta’s western shore, Casa Fantini/Lake Time is a strikingly contemporary 11-room monolith, designed by Piero Lissoni, the Italian starchitect, linking a 19thcentury villa with a new, minimalist block of locai stone, rough-hewn wood and floor-to- ceiling glass. Furnishings are modern-sleek, punctuated by crystal chandeliers, rococo mirrors and walls of mismatched frames: the effect is one of thoughtful luxe. Daniela Fantini runs her Pella hotel and restaurant as an extension of her home: vegetables are from her garden, wine is made by a friend, and bathrooms – as you’d expect from the Fantini brassware clan – are top-notch. Details B&B doubles from f423 (casafantinilaketime.com)

Antonino Cannavacciuolo’s ornate Moorish palace on the edge of Orta San Giulio is so much more than a restaurant with rooms. Villa Crespi was commissioned by Cristoforo Benigno Crespi, an Italian cotton merchant, in 1879 as a homage to the architecture he loved, and although it has made its name as a two-Michelin-starred redoubt, it also has 14 opulent rooms and its own minaret. Angelo Colla’s decorative vision is a mix of Middle Eastern styles, with arches, domes, marble, stucco, mosaics, marquetry and gilding all fighting for your attenti on along with the food. Details B&B doubles from f308 (villacrespi.it) Antonino Cannavacciuolo’s ornate Moorish palace on the edge of Orta San Giulio is so much more than a restaurant with rooms. Villa Crespi was commissioned by Cristoforo Benigno Crespi, an Italian cotton merchant, in 1879 as a homage to the architecture he loved, and although it has made its name as a two-Michelin-starred redoubt, it also has 14 opulent rooms and its own minaret. Angelo Colla’s decorative vision is a mix of Middle Eastern styles, with arches, domes, marble, stucco, mosaics, marquetry and gilding all fighting for your attenti on along with the food. Details B&B doubles from f‘.308 (villacresP-i.it)

LaDarbia

Conceived and run by Matteo and Gian Carlo Primatesta, the design team behind Laqua by the Lake, La Darbia is a collection of smart self-catering apartments on the hillside above Orta San Giulio. Built from local stone and timber in the middle of a nebbiolo vineyard, the low-rise, ivy-clad buildings are rustic-chic in style – rooms are furnished in cool whites and soft naturals – with an ethos that’s thoroughly green. Matteo Monfrinotti, chef at on-site restaurant La Cucina, puts the focus on Piemontese produce, the atmosphere throughout is warm and laid-back, and views from the lavender-scented gardens down to the lake are knockout. Details Room-only doubles from f‘.143 (ladarbia.com)