A masseria, a restored fortified farmhouse among the olive groves, is the quintessential Puglia stay: stone vaults, a pool and dinner grown on the estate. Here are the ones worth booking, from rustic-chic value to five-star.
Masserie vary wildly, from a €150 family farmhouse with a pool to a €700 five-star with a thalasso spa, so we’ve sorted them by what kind of trip they suit, and tagged each by area. A few things hold across all of them: you’ll want a car, the best ones book out months ahead for summer (some with 7-night minimums in August), and shoulder season (May-June, September) is when they’re at their best. New to the idea? A masseria is a working or former farm estate, often with its own oil, wine or vegetables on the table.
These are our editorial picks, not a paid ranking.
What is a masseria, exactly?
A masseria is a self-sufficient farm estate, a cluster of stone buildings set around a walled courtyard, and most of the ones you can sleep in today took shape between the 16th and 18th centuries. They were farms and small fortresses at the same time: a high fortified wall, defensive towers, stables and storerooms, a press for wine, a dairy and an oil mill, the owner’s rooms on the upper floor and, on the larger estates, a small church.
The word describes a building, not a grade. A restored masseria can be a five-star resort with a spa and a private beach club, a boutique conversion of a dozen rooms, or a working farm that takes guests at a fraction of the price, and all three are on this page. For the long version, read what a masseria is and what staying in one is actually like.
The tower of Masseria Ospina, near Racale in the Salento.An underground olive press, a frantoio ipogeo, in Gallipoli.
Our top picks
If you only look at three, an icon, a slow-food classic and an authentic countryside favourite.
Style:Amenities:
Price per night for two, outside July and August: € under €100, €€ €100-200, €€€ €200-400, €€€€ over €400.
Masseria Il Melograno
Near Monopoli
Classic luxuryBeach club
Il Melograno says it was the first masseria in Italy to host guests. Today it is a 17th-century country house outside Monopoli in five hectares of historic gardens, with an outdoor pool, a heated indoor one and a Caschera spa. Dinner is at Mùmmulo, named after the clay jug farmers once filled with water for the summer fields, where Apulian dishes get a modern treatment on a veranda facing the citrus grove. Book it if you want the sea and a proper hotel without the scale of the Savelletri resorts. The old winery, partly from the 1800s, is cut into the white local stone, there are tennis and padel courts, and a free shuttle takes guests to the Tamerici beach club in about ten minutes.
Il Frantoio is a farm first: 72 hectares on the plain below Ostuni, organic since 2004, around a house founded in the 1500s and extended until the 1800s, with its underground oil mill still part of the visit. There are no chefs in the kitchen, only a team of women cooking from the estate’s citrus grove, its vegetables and more than 35 wild herbs picked under the old olive trees, and in summer dinner moves into the courtyard. It is the masseria on this list to choose for food, and you can book dinner even if you sleep elsewhere. Guests can also take an organic oil tasting or a cooking class. Children are welcome, with a playground and babysitting, and the sea and the Dune Costiere park are a few miles away.
Martuccio is the inland choice, on the Appia state road between Latiano and Mesagne: a fortified masseria of the late 1600s built around a closed courtyard and entered through a monumental barrel-vaulted arch. The Galasso family has owned it since 1985. It has 28 rooms and two pools, the second hidden in the pine wood and crossed by a small stone bridge. La Vecchia Corte serves à la carte under stone vaults warmed by three fireplaces, and it is open to non-residents, like the dinners at a single table in the old cellar. The halls take up to 400 guests, and the estate hosts weddings and events. It is far gentler on price than the coast, with Ostuni 45 minutes away and the sea at Torre Guaceto about half an hour.
Torre Maizza is Rocco Forte’s hotel in Puglia: rooms designed by Olga Polizzi, the Irene Forte Spa and a rooftop bar for the sunset. The most striking room is the Torre Suite, on the top floor of the old tower. Dinner at Carosello, in what was once the estate’s animal shelter, follows Puglia and the season, and the bar sits in a 16th-century barn. Outside there is a nine-hole executive golf course, par 27, and the Lido Bambù beach club at Capitolo, south of Monopoli, with light dishes created under Fulvio Pierangelini. Children of every age have their own programme, from babies to teenagers. Choose it for polished service and a short round of golf, and ask about the Borgo degli Ulivi suites, which have private gardens and pools.
San Domenico grew out of a 15th-century watchtower that the Knights of Malta used against Saracen raids, and it has been a hotel since 1996, with 60 hectares of old olive trees and orchards around it. The pool is the famous part: huge, filled with salt water and edged by natural rock, and it has served as a film set. It is adults only, from 14, which makes it the calm choice in the belt and the wrong one for a young family. There are 40 rooms, a thalassotherapy centre and an 18-hole golf course running through the olives towards the sea, 500 metres away. A kilometre down the coast, San Domenico a Mare adds four rooms right on the water and La Nassa, a fish restaurant open for lunch from June to September.
Le Carrube takes its name from the carob tree in its grounds and sits off the Fasano to Ostuni road in open country, halfway between the sea and the hills, with glimpses of the Adriatic over the olive groves from some suites. There are 19 of them, in whitewashed buildings with tiled roofs, and there is a pool. The restaurant is vegetarian and zero-waste: the vegetables come from the masseria’s gardens, the oil from its own grove and the fruit from 250 trees. On summer evenings the wood-fired oven is lit on the patio above the citrus grove. If you eat little or no meat, this is the masseria to book. Dinner runs from Tuesday to Sunday and needs a reservation, and the cooking classes cover orecchiette, taralli or panzerotti.
Salinola is a family house in the countryside near Ostuni, in the Valle d’Itria, and it keeps the family’s habits: the 17th-century chapel still has mass every Sunday in September. The kitchen is run by the mothers of the house, with a menu of the day built on dishes like orecchiette with turnip tops, mashed broad beans and oven-baked rabbit, and the oil comes from olive trees the family dates to a thousand years. Some rooms keep the names and fittings of the farm spaces they once were, such as the old water cistern. Outside there is an 8 by 15 metre pool, an eight-seat hot tub and, since 2025, a playground, and a family suite sleeps five. The restaurant opens from April and takes a few outside guests when the house is not full.
Cervarolo sits on a 250-metre rise six kilometres from Ostuni, on ten hectares named after the deer once found here. It is the pick for sleeping in a trullo without giving up a hotel: some junior suites are in the estate’s trulli, and one suite is in a 17th-century lamia in the gardens. The pool is set in a natural sinkhole. The little church of 1798, dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows, keeps its baroque altar, old frescoes and ex-votos. In the kitchen Salvatore Cannalire cooks local produce with carefully chosen international ingredients, and in summer dinner moves into the citrus grove. Solar panels cover all of the estate’s power. The Adriatic is 25 minutes away by car and the Ionian about 50.
Montelauro is a much older house than it looks: founded around the year 1000, rebuilt at the end of the 1800s and now one of Italy’s Dimore Storiche, two kilometres from Otranto. It is run by Elisabetta and her daughters, Caterina and Mercedes. The 29 rooms have Lecce-stone vaults, chianca floors and wrought-iron beds and lamps made by local craftsmen. The restaurant is called Fimmine, dialect for women, and cooks with vegetables, fruit and oil from the garden, and it is open to people staying elsewhere. There is a pool among flowering pergolas. It is the best base on this list for the Salento’s east coast, with the beaches of the Otranto coast close by and Lecce 35 kilometres away.
Galeta is the smallest place on this page and the most farm-like: a working masseria near Nardò with cows and goats, a B&B since 2020 and only five rooms. Three are lofts with mezzanines off the courtyard and two are on the first floor of the 16th-century tower, whose upper floor could once be reached only by an outside stair with a drawbridge. One room was the mule’s stable and keeps its reed ceiling and old fireplace. Galeta makes its own goat and cow cheeses, cooks home-restaurant dinners for a handful of guests and serves aperitivo on the tower terrace at sunset. Book it for the quiet and the farm, not for hotel service. The sea, Porto Cesareo and Nardò are under ten minutes by car, children are welcome, though the tower rooms only from 12, and pets are not.
Almost every luxury masseria in Puglia sits in one place: the gentle coast around Savelletri di Fasano, where olive country meets the Adriatic. It is flat, green and discreet, ancient estates restored with serious money, a few minutes from the sea and within easy reach of Ostuni, Alberobello and the Valle d’Itria, with Fasano as the gateway. Torre Maizza and San Domenico, both above, sit in this belt. These three complete it.
Borgo Egnazia
Savelletri, five-star belt
5-star resortFamilies
Borgo Egnazia is not an old masseria but a new resort built to look like a rural village around a piazza, and it is the most complete resort in Puglia. Rooms are split between La Corte, the main building, the little Casette and villas with private pools among the tufa roofs. There are eight places to eat, from the pizzeria to Due Camini, which holds a Michelin star for cooking that puts one vegetable at the centre of each dish. The spa covers 2,400 m², there are indoor and outdoor pools, and the two beaches are Cala Masciola and La Fonte. Children get three clubs by age, from 3 to 16. It hosted the G7 in June 2024. Choose it for a family holiday where nobody needs to leave; skip it if you came for a real farm.
Of the five-star houses, Torre Coccaro is the one with the most character. It is Torre Maizza’s sister, owned and still run by the Muolo family: a 16th-century fortified farm two kilometres from the fishing village of Savelletri, where the history is still in use. The chapel of 1730, a pilgrimage spot for the village’s fishermen, still holds mass, and there is a walled 17th-century kitchen garden, olive trees more than 800 years old and an old oil mill that has stood in the estate’s caves since the year 1000. The Aveda spa is in natural caves too. Dinner at Egnathia is served under the star vaults of the 1600s stables, with fish from the estate’s own fishermen, and guests choose between two beach clubs, three kilometres away by free shuttle. Many rooms have their own pool.
Don Luigi is the small, quiet option in the five-star belt, in Contrada Coccaro near Savelletri, three kilometres from Fasano and three from the beaches. It is a bed and breakfast rather than a resort: bright rooms with their own patios, some under star vaults, a pool among the olive trees and a buffet breakfast served outside in the warm months. Stay here to be in the belt at a fraction of the resort prices next door. Its listing mentions breakfast only, but the beach clubs of the belt and the tables of Savelletri and Fasano are minutes away. Children of all ages and pets are welcome. Its own website is still a holding page, so these details come from its Booking listing.
These four are asked about constantly and hold their own against the list above. Three sit within a few kilometres of Fasano, one in the countryside behind Ostuni, and between them they cover the whole range, from a hundred euros a night to the edge of the five-star belt. Guest scores are from Booking and were checked on 4 September 2026.
Masseria Grieco
Ostuni, Contrada Grieco
Highest ratedValue
For the guest score and the price, Grieco is the best value on this list. It is also young as a hotel: the owners spent more than 15 years restoring it, opened ten rooms in 2018 and now has 25. It stands in open country about 12 kilometres from Ostuni and nine from Ceglie Messapica, with a wood of its own to walk in and a big oak where massages are given. Lunch follows Nonna Maria’s recipes, dinner is served in the courtyard, and the oil, the wine and the ice cream are made on the estate. There is an infinity pool, and pets are not allowed.
Montenapoleone stood empty for forty years before the Monteneve family began restoring it in the 2000s. It sits on an old rock-cut settlement in the plain of ancient olive trees near Pezze di Greco, with the Torre Canne lighthouse on the horizon. It is an organic farm that grows fruit, vegetables, oil and wine, including its own Susumaniello, Primi Passi, and the restaurant and bar are in the old carpentry workshop, where the bar counter is an old craftsman’s workbench. The iron beds are original, from the early 1900s. Families should look here first: there is a playground with a slide and a climbing wall, and the pool slopes in like a beach, which suits small children. From November to February the restaurant is not always open.
Calderisi is a 17th-century farmhouse with a tower of 1658, built from tufa quarried on the estate itself, and it sits inside the five-star belt near Savelletri with eight hectares of olive, citrus and almond trees. It gives you the belt for about half the price of its famous neighbours. It has 24 rooms and suites, a consecrated chapel, a pool and La Corte, a restaurant doing modern Puglian cooking with the estate’s produce. The head chef, Pietro, teaches pizza at the old stone oven. Two rescued donkeys live on the farm, and the shop sells Etro, Max Mara, Valentino and Missoni next to ceramics from Grottaglie. A shuttle takes guests to a private beach ten minutes away.
Salamina was built in the 1600s as both a working farm and a noble residence, and the crenellated tower over the arched portico still makes it look like a small castle in the olive groves near Pezze di Greco. The same family has owned it since 1986 and runs it as an agriturismo with 20 rooms: six with mezzanines, eight apartments of about 50 m² and six on the main floor, with decorated floors, marble mosaic bathrooms and, in some, a terrace looking out to sea. The restaurant is in the old oil mill, which became a stable in the 1800s, and meals also move to the greenhouse, the courtyard or the vineyard. The wine is the house Susumaniello, and there are oil and wine tastings. Book it if you want a working farm that still feels grand. The pool is filtered naturally.
They are scattered all over the region, but three areas hold almost everything worth booking, and choosing between them decides the shape of your trip more than the property does.
The Valle d’Itria, inland
The classic choice and the highest concentration of them: drystone walls, olive groves and vineyards between Ostuni, Locorotondo, Martina Franca and Cisternino, with Alberobello and its trulli twenty minutes away. Masserie here are usually converted farms rather than resorts, they cost less than the coast, and you are central enough to reach both seas in under an hour. The trade-off is that you drive to every beach.
The courtyard of Masseria Gorgognolo Nuovo, near Ostuni.
The Fasano and Savelletri belt, on the coast
A short stretch of flat, green country where the olive plain meets the Adriatic, and where nearly every luxury masseria in Puglia sits. This is resort territory: private beach clubs, spas, golf, and prices to match. It is also the easiest base if you want the sea in the morning and a hill town in the evening, since Ostuni and Polignano are both close.
The rural chapel of Masseria Torre Spaccata, Pezze di Greco, in the Fasano countryside.
The Salento, further south
The heel proper, hotter and more rustic, with the best beaches in the region and masserie that cost noticeably less for the same amount of stone. Bases around Otranto, Lecce and Gallipoli suit a second leg of a trip more than a whole week, unless the beach is the point.
Masseria Cippano and its tower, near Otranto.
How to choose between them
If it is your first time and you want to see the region, base in the Valle d’Itria. If the holiday is the hotel, go to the belt. If you are coming for the sea, go south. Splitting a week between two of the three works well and costs you one afternoon of driving. More on this in where to stay in Puglia.
What it costs, and when to book
The three price bands
A working farm or family-run masseria with a pool starts at roughly €110 to €180 a night. The boutique tier, restored stone and a kitchen people travel for, runs about €200 to €350. The five-star belt is genuine resort pricing: the smaller houses start near €200 out of season, while San Domenico, Torre Maizza and Borgo Egnazia sit at €500 and up, climbing into four figures for suites in high summer. Shoulder season, May and late September into October, is materially better value in all three bands, with the sea still warm and the crowds thinner.
When to book
For July and August, and for any wedding or honeymoon stay, book 6 to 12 months ahead: the marquee properties and their best rooms go early, and some masserie hold seven-night minimums in August. Shoulder-season trips can be booked much closer in. See when to visit Puglia before you fix your dates.
A luxury masseria or a regular one
«Masseria» covers a huge range, and the word tells you nothing about the price. A luxury masseria is a restored estate run as a five-star resort; the same word also describes a family farm with eight rooms and a pool. Do not assume it means budget, and do not assume it means Borgo Egnazia.
The five-star belt
Masserie elsewhere
Where
Savelletri di Fasano, on the coast
Across the rest of Puglia
Style
Restored resort estates, five-star service
Smaller, often family-run farm stays
Price
Top tier
A fraction of it
Best for
Resort-level luxury and service
Character and value, with a pool and a great kitchen
Not sure which area?
Most of these sit in two clusters: the Valle d’Itria (around Ostuni, trulli country, central) and the Fasano-Savelletri belt (coastal, luxury). Salento masserie suit a beach-focused second leg. Where to base yourself in Puglia
Travelling as a group?
Many masserie can be hired whole, and some have 7-night minimums in August, worth checking before you fall for one. Villas & whole-masseria rentals
Getting there
Masserie sit out in the countryside, often down a white gravel track; a car isn’t optional. Pick up at Bari or Brindisi and you’re an hour or less from most of them.
A family-run masseria with a pool starts at roughly €110 to €180 a night, the boutique tier runs €200 to €350, and the five-star belt around Savelletri sits at €500 and up in summer. Shoulder season is materially cheaper in every band.
What is the difference between a masseria and an agriturismo?
A masseria is a building: the fortified farm estate itself. An agriturismo is what it does: a working farm that takes guests and cooks what it grows. Plenty of masserie are run as agriturismi, Masseria Salamina among them, and plenty are not. Borgo Egnazia is neither: it is a new-build resort designed as a village.
Which masserie in Puglia have a pool?
A pool is close to standard in a restored masseria, and every property in our top picks and in the five-star belt has one. Use the Pool filter above the list to see only the ones that do.
Do you need a car to stay in a masseria?
Yes, in practice. Masserie are rural by definition, usually 10 to 20 minutes from the nearest town and often down an unmade track, with no useful public transport. Pick a car up at Bari or Brindisi and you are an hour or less from most of them.
Which is the most luxurious masseria in Puglia?
The Savelletri belt sets the standard: Borgo Egnazia for full-resort glamour, Torre Maizza for polished service, San Domenico for understated historic elegance.
How far ahead should you book for August?
Six to twelve months, and the same for any wedding or honeymoon stay. The best rooms in the marquee estates go early, and some masserie hold seven-night minimums in August.
Where do celebrities stay in Puglia?
Most often at Borgo Egnazia in Savelletri. Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel married there in October 2012, Madonna has spent three birthdays there (2016, 2017 and 2021), the Beckhams holidayed there in August 2019 and July 2020, and it hosted the G7 summit in June 2024.
Can you eat at a masseria without staying there?
At some of them. On this page, Il Frantoio, Martuccio (at La Vecchia Corte and at the cellar dinners), Montelauro (at Fimmine) and Salinola, with a limited number of places, say on their own websites that they take outside guests. Book ahead, and check the dates: some masseria restaurants close or cut their opening days in winter.
Found your masseria?
The best ones go early, lock in summer dates well ahead.
I grew up in the province of Brindisi and spent 30 years in Puglia; the Salento coast is home water. Everything above is checked on the ground; when a place slips, it gets updated. More about who is behind this guide
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