Ca' Del Moro

Where the South Meets the Valpantena

The drive north from Verona into the Valpantena valley sets expectations quickly: vine-covered slopes, cherry orchards, and the particular quietness of agricultural Veneto. By the time you reach the La Collina dei Ciliegi estate at Località Erbin, the restaurant's first-floor dining room already feels like a deliberate counterpoint to the city's well-trodden centro storico circuit. Ca' Del Moro sits up here, above the winery, with access by lift and views over the estate grounds. It is not the kind of address you stumble upon.

That physical remove matters to how the food reads. The kitchen draws on Calabria and Puglia. The regional logic they bring, sun-dried, fermented, smoke-cured, intensely flavoured, arrives in a corner of northern Italy more accustomed to Amarone-braised beef and risotto al tastasal. The tension is productive. Contemporary Italian cooking in 2024 and 2025 increasingly treats regional identity not as a constraint but as a primary creative resource, and Ca' Del Moro operates squarely within that trend, drawing on two of Italy's most ingredient-rich southern traditions rather than a generic pan-Italian repertoire.

Southern Italian Ingredients in a Northern Italian Setting

Calabrian and Puglian cooking share certain structural instincts: a reliance on preserved and fermented products, a preference for assertive rather than delicate flavour, and a use of chilli, smoke, and aged dairy that can seem almost austere by the standards of butter-softened northern kitchens. 'Nduja, the spreadable, fiery cured pork from Calabria, is among the more imitated ingredients in Italian contemporary cooking right now, appearing on menus from Milan to London. At Ca' Del Moro, it appears in homemade spaghetti with 'nduja, smoked ricotta, and a tomato ristretto sauce. The construction is precise. A tomato ristretto is a reduced, clarified extraction, intense and clean, that frames the fat of the 'nduja and the cooling smoke of the ricotta without muddying the dish. This is not a rustic southern plate dressed up for a northern audience; it is a considered technical reading of Calabrian pantry ingredients.

Puglian influence emerges more through ingredient sourcing than any single dish template. The larder of Puglia, burrata, orecchiette, fava, lamb, caper, is among the more coherent in Italian regional cooking, and its integration here signals a kitchen confident in its origins rather than eager to obscure them. Quattro Passi in Marina del Cantone and Uliassi in Senigallia show how coastal southern and central Italian traditions perform at Michelin three-star level. The restaurant operates in a different price bracket and format, but the commitment to regional specificity is a shared value.

The Estate Ingredient: Brogna Mutton

One dish anchors the restaurant's connection to its immediate physical environment more directly than anything else on the menu. Brogna mutton, a heritage breed raised on the estate itself, arrives barbecued and plated with a caper sauce and a seasonal mushroom pie. The Brogna is a Veronese breed, historically associated with the Lessinia plateau and the broader pre-Alpine arc north of the city, and it carries a stronger flavour profile than commercial lamb. Raising it on site closes a supply chain that many contemporary Italian restaurants claim but fewer actually operate. The caper sauce draws on the same southern pantry logic as the signature pasta: capers are a Puglian and Sicilian staple, a bridging ingredient that makes the northern mutton legible within the kitchen's southern register.

This kind of estate-to-table integration is not common in Veneto restaurant culture, which tends to treat the winery and the table as separate operations. That restaurant treats the estate's own livestock as a featured product places it closer in philosophy to mountain restaurants in Alto Adige, where Atelier Moessmer Norbert Niederkofler in Brunico has built a three-star reputation around hyper-local alpine sourcing, than to the classic Veneto trattoria model.

The Wine List and the Estate Context

La Collina dei Ciliegi is a serious wine producer in the Valpantena, a sub-valley that sits within the broader Valpolicella production zone. The estate's own labels naturally anchor the wine list, alongside selections from other Veneto producers and a limited French contingent. For a dining experience tied this closely to a wine estate, the list functions as an argument for the surrounding terroir rather than a display of global range. The Valpantena is a quieter, less commercially prominent part of the Valpolicella zone than Classico or Negrar, meaning the wines poured here often reflect a more local, less marketed expression of the regional style. Those interested in broader Veneto wine context will find the Grezzana wineries guide useful for orientation.

Le Calandre in Rubano and Casa Perbellini 12 Apostoli in Verona represent the three-star and starred tiers respectively.

Planning Your Visit

The restaurant is located at Località Erbin, 31, 37023 Grezzana VR, within the La Collina dei Ciliegi estate, roughly 15 kilometres north of Verona's city centre. The address is not on a main road, and first-time visitors should allow for the estate approach. The restaurant occupies the first floor, with a lift available. Reservations are recommended. The price tier of €€€ positions it above casual Valpolicella agriturismi but below the starred Veronese circuit.

Osteria Francescana in Modena and Enoteca Pinchiorri in Florence at the three-star tier, to mid-register addresses like Agli Amici in Rovinj and L'Olivo in Anacapri, and inland creative addresses including Piazza Duomo in Alba, Reale in Castel di Sangro, Enrico Bartolini in Milan, and Dal Pescatore in Runate.