Masseria Degli Ulivi - Noto

A gorgeous setting, very well maintained and expansive gardens with a beautiful pool, excellent restaurant, and incredibly expansive breakfast offering, great staff & service.... simply a fantastic place to stay. Close to siracusa and Noto, yet offering intimacy and perfect relaxation. Hands-down the best play we stayed at while vacationing in Sicily.

Delightful hotel in a rural setting, within an easy drive of Ragusa, Noto and Siracusa, so a good place to base oneself in SE Sicily and/or just chill out. A good restaurant serving a wide range of local dishes in a pretty refined manner. Excellent buffet breakfast catering for most tastes. Staff in the restaurant were superb. Rooms were perfectly good but unremarkable.

We stayed for 6 nights in this wonderful oasis just a few kms north of Noto. The Rooms, The Restaurant, The Gardens and The Pool are all excellent but the Management and the Staff were beyond wonderful. Great place, great location and great people. We’ll be back!

This is a well marketed Masseria in beautiful countryside close to Noto and the other major centres of the Val di Noto. Its immediate attractions are its large and well-designed swimming pool and tennis court and the peaceful setting along a quiet lane way. But we enjoyed the excellent food in the restaurant most of all. Excellent food is important because although Noto isn’t far away, we decided that the winding roads at night weren’t compatible with drinking wine! Not only was the food good but the service was exceptional from our two main waiters, Marco and Gabriele. Their knowledge of the wine on offer was excellent. And they were both personable and helpful with our attempts at Italian! Breakfast is excellent too with a huge display of freshly baked cakes and pastries as well as eggs, cheeses and meats. That said, our travel agent made a mistake with the bookings and we were put in a standard room. We’d been travelling in Italy for six weeks when we arrived at the Masseria and we needed space and a private place to relax. The standard room was so small we couldn’t pass each other and there was no where to store large suit cases. The standard room might be fine for visitors coming with hand luggage from somewhere in Italy for an extended weekend, but totally unsuited a week’s stay for international travellers. There seemed to be no effective air-conditioning either. The bed was bouncy and there was only one additional pillow. Some rooms are up stairs. The. Masseria seems to have been built as a hotel, and not as its publicity says with rooms which would have been used for agricultural purposes in the past. It’s attractive but the place lacks a sense of tradition or “soul” compared with Fattorias or Masserias I’ve stayed in previously in the Mezzogiorno. But, good for the food, the fantastic service and the swimming pool and don’t have a lot of luggage!

Spent 10 nights in this lovely hotel. Everything was just how I wished it to be. Our room was spotless, bed was comfy with a lovely view over the garden area and pool. Food was amazing. Enough to eat at breakfast with a wide choice. Dinner was a mixture of fish, meat & vegetarian dishes. All food was freshly prepared each day. Restaurant was busy most night with hotel guests & local users. Staff where top notch made you feel really welcome even the hotel cat (Pulina). Everyone was so friendly and made time to talk to you. Very small team & where able to multi task jumping from restaurant to housekeeping. Location was lovely and very quiet. A car is needed as out of the way. Would definitely go back.

Masseria degli Ulivi is a sophisticated oasis, perfect for those who are seeking tranquility and true relaxation. We stayed at the Masseria for four wonderful nights. Each day starts with a delightful breakfast filled with treats both savory and sweet. Must trys are the cornetti (croissants) filled with pistachio crème, the crostata with fruit and the fruit bowl with local fresh fruit. Dinner at the Masseria was an exceptional experience with wonderful food and wine, featuring local specialties and a well curated menu. We ate there three nights and there was plenty of variety. Choosing what to eat each night was the most difficult part of the stay. The staff are really kind and helpful – making bookings for us at local places that we wanted to visit - not that we wanted to leave the gorgeous surroundings. Masseria degli Ulivi is an amazing base from which to explore the surrounding area, especially Noto and other cities of the southeast. If you don’t leave, a beautiful pool, olive groves, tennis and bocce courts, ping pong, and a wellness area with salt pools offered many options throughout the day to pass the time and relax. Wifi worked great, and each room had its own personal access. The rooms are tastefully and sparingly decorated, clean and comfortable. And we had wonderful sleep thanks to the stillness, quiet, darkness at night. The clientele are also courteous and respectful of other guests personal space and relaxation, creating a communal peaceful atmosphere. One of the most fantastic hotel experiences we have had in recent years, we cannot recommend Masseria degli Ulivi enough. We are already looking forward to our return. Many thanks to Corrada, and all of the staff at Masseria (especially Marco, Carlo and Ana Lisa) for making this visit unforgettable.