Sorrento Peninsula: Easter breakfast at Don Alfonso's ...

What a Mediterranean breakfast SHOULD be like, and what it has been like before: You can see and taste all this at Don Alfonso's 1890: a remarkable restaurant and hotel, located next to the ridge of the Sorrento peninsula, in the center of the town Sant'Agata sui due Golfi, about 11 km from Sorrento.

Le Peracciole is the name of the farm owned by the Iaccarino family, that delivers the freshest produce for all meals served at Don Alfonso's. You can see their flowering trees in the orchards, the lemons are covered by dark green plastic foils, and you can see the island of Capri in the background ...

Here I would like to present their marvelous setting for breakfast, for Easter Sunday or on Pasquetta Day (Easter Monday), but not only ... this is a perfect place to enjoy a morning in spring. Breakfast is served inside or as you can see in the pictures below, on the veranda, in a colorful and flower-trenched Mediterranean setting.  

The Easter decoration awaiting guests in the sala, where breakfast is taken in spring when it is too humid outside 

An Easter tree - evergreen plants hold decorated eggs in the pastel colors you will encounter so often here at Don Alfonso's: pink, green, yellow and sky blue

The impression you get inside and outside is the pastel colors of white and pink, including wide windows opening up into the lush garden that is framing their estate. But then, Sant'Agata sui due Golfi, is also a very special place. Not only are you surrounded by a magnificent Mediterranean macchia, lemon groves and olive trees stretching all the way down to Massalubrense and towards Positano, but you also get, from certain outlook points, a unique view of the "two seas", the Gulf of Naples, including Vesuvius, and the Gulf of Salerno, the Amalfi Coast.

Arriving at Don Alfonso's very early for breakfast, on a humid day, when Sant'Agata is still shrouded in mist An hour later or so, the fogs lifted and sunshine came through ...

This is Sant'Agata, Don Alfonso's is located near the church, in the center of town  (pop. 3,000 approx),  a fraction of Massalubrense, located near the tip of the Sorrento Peninsula (Province of Naples)

Don Alfonso's is a very private place with a luxurious garden tucked away behind the restaurant, including a romantic pool and covered porches. What is unique here is that the ingredients used for breakfast are all prepared and produced in-house: the bread is freshly baked, and so are the cakes and pastine served for breakfast. Here you can savor a truly Mediterranean breakfast ...

Colorful pastel tableware

Winter garden (source of these two pictures: Viaggiare gourmet)

You get a good selection of breakfast teas, of course organically grown, but also finest coffee Napoli-style. And afterwards, even if the weather is not so perfect to go for a stroll in the garden grounds, you just cross the entrance path to enter another building, which is housing a library including a caminetto (fireplace) where the fire is blazing on humid (if not really cold) mornings. 

Il Salotto, with finest products on show

Here you can choose your breakfast selection ...

In the adjacent room, you can watch a video presenting the approach to life and cooking of the owners of this extraordinary place, the Iaccarino family. And you can take a look at the products they prepare on-site, from pasta to jam and citrus marmelades to the honey made by the bees at their own farm located nearby, which is called le Peracciole ... By the way, this farm is facing the sea at Punta Campanella, the tip of the Sorrento peninsula, just opposite Capri.

A view down from Sant'Agata towards Li Galli Islands

I will be back as this Blog is developing, with more information on this great place with a very special filosophy towards food and nutrition.