Daniela Adamo

Daniela, reinventing a family tradition

I am Daniela Adamo and I live and work in Sicily where good food and the love for traditions have always been an important part of the culture. In my family history, there has always been a strong passion for food and hospitality and in the large rooms of my farmhouse there have always been huge suppers with delicious dishes and wonderful smells. Following the family tradition I was just a 7 year old girl when I started cooking by myself cakes and biscuits!

This strong feeling about food has brought me to choose Gastronomic Science University of Slow Food, in order to make my passion become a work.

After a working experience in Milan in the Food and Beverage floor of la Rinascente department store as a manager, I decided to come back to Sicily and take care of the family farmhouse Baglio Cappello. It is a late 18TH century baglio, a fortified country house, with a large interior courtyard, two floors, a small ancient chapel and many storage rooms where work tools were kept. It is located in the middle of an ancient organic olive grove of 10 hectares where you can take long walks in close contact with nature.

As I arrived I imagined an innovative way of hospitality, giving this old  mansion a modern concept creating an B&B and cooking classes for tourists.

My aim is to make people discover history and gastronomy of Sicilian cooking using recipes from the past or simply forgotten and to educate to the selection of raw materials, choosing exclusively season’s products picked from my own organic garden and from local farmers’ market: it’s a show cooking from the garden to the dish!

With high sense of hospitality I receive food lovers in Baglio Cappello where the kitchen has a leading role so to make people rediscover the meaning of hospitality and the pleasure of cooking and being together to cheer up the dining room and be “infected” by good Sicilian humor.

The experience starts at the arrival to the country house where guests are welcomed with an appetizer and local wine on the terrace and getting acquainted with ingredients and recipes. Later, mingled at the table the real experience takes place when we all start talking about good food and wine in a very friendly mood!

The most appealing traditional dishes are arancines, sfincione, fresh pasta with Trapanese pesto, cannoli, involtini, meatballs in fresh tomato sauce and many more.

In one of these occasions, I was preparing arancines with a Canadian family and in making these rice balls, I discovered that they were almost professional in doing it. And when surprised, I asked how could that be, they answered laughing that practiced all winter making snowballs!!

Getting in touch with people from all over the world is the most amusing part of my job. Of course life is not a bowl of cherries and sometimes when they ask me for a cappuccino after supper or dinner I answer that I prefer to offer them a sweet local wine in a perfect Sicilian style.

Daniela Adamo

Daniela Amato graduated from the University of Gastronomic Sciences of Slow Food and after a work experience in Milan in the world of Food & Beverage, she decided to go back to Sicily to take care of the family’s agricultural fund. She gives an innovative imprint to the agronomic and cultural practices in order to obtain a high quality extra virgin olive oil. Daniela follows the entire oil production chain, from field work to the finished product and its marketing all over the globe.

Baglio Cappello

Baglio Cappello

Baglio Cappello