Where on earth is Abruzzo?
Two hours east of Rome, Abruzzo sits where the Apennine mountains meet the Adriatic Sea — and somehow, most Americans have never heard of it. No tour buses. No crowds. No souvenir stands selling the same postcards you’ve seen in every other Italian town. Just working farms, family-run kitchens, and hill towns that have looked this way for centuries. This is the Italy people talk about wanting to find — and rarely do.
Your week is based in Carunchio, a small hilltop village above the coast of Vasto. It’s the kind of place where the baker knows your name by day two — and where a dedicated gluten-free kitchen means you can finally stop reading every label.
2 hours from Rome
Mountains meet the sea
Italy’s most protected wilderness
Carunchio — your hilltop base
THE GLUTEN-FREE PROMISE
You cook. You eat. You stop having to ask.
We built this kitchen for people who’ve spent years double-checking every menu before they order. Who’ve learned to ask the same three questions at every restaurant, in every city, in every country. Here, for one week, you don’t have to.
A kitchen and pantry set up specifically for gluten-free cooking, kept separate from other food prep
Traditional Abruzzese recipes remade gluten-free — fresh pasta, bread, and dessert — taught by local cooks who make them this way every day
Every meal of your week planned around this, not just the cooking classes
Guests managing celiac disease and gluten sensitivity have traveled with us for years
FROM MASSIMO
The person behind this promise
I’m Massimo Criscio, and this kitchen is mine. I didn’t build it because gluten-free cooking was trendy — I built it because I got tired of watching guests sit at my table doing math instead of eating. Checking labels. Asking questions. Waiting to see how they’d feel the next morning.
That’s not what a meal in Abruzzo is supposed to be.
So we changed how we cook, not just what we cook. Every recipe you’ll learn this week — the pasta, the bread, the dessert — is one we make this way every single day, for every guest, whether they need it gluten-free or not. It’s not a special menu we pull out for one group. It’s just how this kitchen runs now.
I’ll be there for most of the week — cooking alongside you, answering whatever you’re still unsure about. Not because it’s good hospitality. Because I understand why you’re asking.
— Massimo Criscio, Palazzo Tour D’Eau