Paradiso Pure Living Vegan Hotel

What an absolutely lovely hotel and experience - start to finish. We are vegan, and we were so lucky to have found Paradiso. From the excellent and helpful management to the staff (Tommy became a friend!), we were truly enthralled by our experience. It is a small hotel, and it feels like a truly intimate vacation. The pool area is warm and heavenly, Marnie's yoga classes are excellent, the rooms, esp the larger ones, are lovely and comfortable, and the food - it is absolutely a dream for vegans. The buffet breakfast is heavenly, and includes ample amounts of both sweet (croissants!) and savory options, excellent coffee, fresh juices, and fresh breads. There is a la carte lunch available, right on the slopes - we loved the brick pizza offerings! And dinner - 5 courses of the most sophisticated and delicious vegan dishes. If you are vegan - or not - you will love your stay at Paradiso.

Where to start...firstly the beautiful, recently retrofitted hotel sits at 2000 m altitude next to a lovely piste in the middle of the Dolomites UNESCO World Heritage Site. The skiing is gorgeous: wide, well kept pistes under impossible blue skies are a reason enough to be here. The hotel is run by a family that also owns two other vegan hotels in Italy and is as serious about hospitality as they are about sustainability and, of course, food. The team is lovely, friendly and helpful, rooms are comfortable without being ostentatious and the hotel is filled with contemporary art including by a number of artists who have taken residence here since it reopened. And then the food. Impossiblytalented chef Aggeliki Charami who also runs the kitchen at the Koukoumi hotel im Mykonos in the summer, has been in charge since last year as Paradiso transitioned to fully vegan - no mean feat in South Tyroll (or mountains in general!). Aggeliki and her team produce food of impossibly high standards, inspired by her native Greece, Italy and everywhere in between. Half board includes buffet breakfast (pumpkin porridge was a revelation), filo pastries stuffed with everything from herbs to peppers, excellent tofu scramble, fantastic selection of pastries (cream filled croissant anyone?) and a desert table heaving under crumbles, creamy tarts and chocolate delights. Alo included is the dinner: a five course symphony of high end cooking mastery that changes daily with a 9 day rotation: last night there was a delicious cheesy foccacia to start - probably the best I ever had, followed by a version of the Ceasar said after which there were chickpeas in celery broth and the most sublime seitan lasagna i have ever tasted. Finished of by millefoglie with pistachio ganache and yuzy cream. It is insane. There is also a la carte lunch available that has pizzas, vegan fried egg, bao buns and my personal favourite, gnudi pasta a la carbonara - so good I had it twice in a week. Which is 2 out of 3 lunches I actually managed to squeeze into my seriously expanded waistline. I absolutely enjoyed everything and so did the non vegan guests who were certainly the majority last night. The very much non vegan people aplauded the chef as one would a rock star. And this evening I am looking forward to my Omnia fine dining (as if everything else wasn't) 9 course experience that I will write about separately. I could not be happier - thank you Paradiso and Chef!

Superb hotel in a beautiful location Very much a family feel - you can tell the owners really care about the place. The staff went out of their way to make our stay special. The room we stayed in was beautiful, and the breakfast and dinners were great - brilliant to have a different 5 course menu each night!