«My, our story, is a beautiful, long and complicated one love story. Like all good stories, after all. We challenged fate and created something that no one believed in.” That’s how it is Rocco Liggieri tell the story with Viola Nassivera and their choice to turn a forgotten village in Friuli into a place of enchantment and meeting.
Borgo Eibn – in Sauris di Sotto, province of Udine, perched on the Carnia Alps – today it is a mountain lodgesand an enchanting place, a farm in the wild nature of Friuli and a house capable of creating an intimate welcome among friends. A special place to unplug and enjoy peace, nature, beauty and good food. Among the many to have done Borgo Eibn there were a fixed stop Michelle Hunziker and daughter Aurora Ramazzottiand like them many others who among these wonderful mountains have found everything they need to feel good. Only certain places can truly trigger the perfect magic to regenerate body and soul.
«I believe that today the realities that work best are those that have an interesting story to tell, that speak of resilience, of sustainability, of sacrifice. The main aim must never be profit but the continuous search for what gives joy and satisfaction. Borgo Eibn was born from the desire to tell the beauty of our world and our journey. After all, the best dishes are those that are presented, proposed and told in the right context and that arise from an interesting story. Because everything matters».
Rocco Liggieri he is a 35 year old boy, a former water polo player in love with life, enthusiastic about what he does in his mountains. With him it is Viola Nassiverapartner and mother of two daughters, with a family behind her that has specialized in the production and processing of meat for around seventy years and refinement of cheese for almost double that. The two met at a Manu Chao concert in 2014, and were living together shortly after.
Vera’s family has been in this world for generations, her grandfather was among the founders of the Wolf ham factory in Sauris and important part of history of Carnia. In those years his uncle needed someone to help him promote products at various markets and fairs, so Rocco began to travel around Italy and Europe selling cured meats and cheeses.
«I learned to make cheese, ricotta, salami, sausage and I fell in love with that whole world, of its true and authentic stories, of the people who had lived them. I participated in the markets and I was selling people something I had taken part in. I spoke with chefs and restaurateurs, we ate together and at the end of the meal I sold them everything I had brought. I discovered how beautiful it is to create with your own hands and how much satisfaction it gives you. Mario, Viola’s father, is a hotelier and has always had the dream of build something in his land, in Carnia, where the story began» says Rocco passionately.
The Borgo is a place to get lost in the woods and live with nature
Rocco and Viola were never separated again, giving life to a great story of love and human value. It seems like a romantic ending but it’s just the beginning. The idea of Borgo Eibn was about to take shape. «I wanted to take part in it, I wanted to live up there in the mountains and contribute to all of this. I wanted to be among cows, get lost in the woods, learn to live with nature and for my daughters to grow up far from the city running after the chickens in the meadows.”
But the transition was not so rapid because a Trieste native who decides to travel to Carnia is not taken seriously. Those arriving from the sea are not easily accepted and understood in the mountains. Borgo Eibn opened in the summer of 2016. It was not easy to find staff in the city, it is even less so at 1,400 meters in Carnia (not in Cortina, St.Moritz or Courmayeur). The restaurant had to offer a simple menu, it had to be mostly a rich tasting of cured meats and cheeses. The kitchen and the laboratory spaces had been created with this purpose. But in Eibn Rocco learned to cooking on the grill, has decided to be as much in the kitchen as in the dining room, the fogolar he was in the middle of the restaurant, there he could cook, express himself and talk to the guests, listen to their criticisms, their advice and perceive their sensations.
Food for those who love
«Someone told me that food always finds those who love it and I think it’s very true». Rocco is not a chef, he has not attended any cooking school but he is obsessed with the flavors, the aromas, the taste of what he prepares. And he’s pretty good. It has always been like this for him, whether he cooks for forty people or whether he does it for his family at home. Along this engaging story of growth and passion, however, there was an important break: on 23 January 2023 a fire destroyed an important part of Borgo Eibn. «When things like this happen to you you have to react immediately, you have no alternatives. If you stop to think too much about why this happened to me, if you complain, you won’t get anything good out of it. Complaints only hurt, to those who say them and to those who hear them. We must always see the glass half full. Everything that happens to you in life can teach you something worth learning. All big changes can bring good things. You have to be good at grasping them and always think positively.”
The new project, Malga Festons
And so it was, while we await the rebirth of Borgo Eibn, expected in the summer of 2025, Rocco and Viola have carried out another nearby and equally special projectwhere you can be happy and welcome the many enthusiasts of this type of experience, of a smiling life. In fact, they have recently welcomed guests to a remote place called Malga Festonsa natural paradise that reaches 2,000 meters above sea level, whose official inauguration is scheduled for November 30th.
«I visited this enchanted place last June, during the filming of a documentary I was working on, the structure was a semi-construction site, the five rooms were under construction, everything was in progress, there was a lot of wood to use, a kitchen where Rocco delighted those who passed by with a fleeting lunch of frico and local delicacies, their 350 Limousine cows in the mountain pasture, a dozen wonderful ones Haflinger horses and an endless green mountain landscape. I fell in love with it immediately. The combination of their energy, the animals and the intact beauty of that nature made me think that as soon as the rooms were ready, I should return to spend a couple of days in this farm house in the middle of the most beautiful nothing you can encounter.”
«Forget TV, massages and modern comforts – continues Rocco – you will instead find a fireplace, a stube, wood everywhere, the scent of the forest, books, Ugo and Camilla the house dogs, good and sincere cuisine, always wine and grappa, wonderful welcome and peace. You will be in a real mountain hut which hosts animals in the summer (even in the winter it is easy to meet them deer and roe deer), there is evidently no mountain luxury offering found in Borgo Eibn but as is now clear, luxury is quite subjective and for me, as for othersand Malga Festons is highly luxurious. Not only for the total disconnection it allows, but also for the hosts and their team.”
You can relax but it’s not a place for great sleep and a good morning can be seen from the windows breakfasts prepared early by Rocco based on scrambled eggs in hazelnut butter, trout eggs, salted cheese and smoked ricotta, or tarts with homemade apricot and berry jam (with real cream). An absolute must to try that the kids have made a point of, is the potato frico with salted cream cheese and dandelion, a majestic traditional Carnic dish of the highest enjoyment.
And then the chef’s specialty, la emberswhose preparations awaken on a fogolar furlanan external brazier where cooking and feelings come together during the ancient ritual of cooking over a fire. Tagliolini with mountain butter, parmesan, mushrooms, parsley or goulash with polenta cooked on the typical wood-fired spolert, wine-glazed cheeks with crepesroot broth. In short, if there is one thing that will certainly not be missing among these beautiful desolate lands it is the great cuisine, different every day based on what is sourced by Rocco and his suppliers.
The walking and trekking to be done along the Carnic Alps are boundless and you will have enough kilometers to cover to get tired and prepare your body for the well-deserved sleep, but above all for the moments of sharing that are created between the guests in the two rooms used for dinners and lunches (the rooms are on the superior). Rocco and Viola, their family, the souls of Borgo Eibn and Malga Festons, are the emblem of a great Friulian stubbornness, both in rebuilding and facing everything immediately with an energy that few would ever have had, and in living the life as it should: with smile and enthusiasm. A more than material Heritage of Humanity.
Source: Vanity Fair
I’m Susan Karen, a professional writer and editor at World Stock Market. I specialize in Entertainment news, writing stories that keep readers informed on all the latest developments in the industry. With over five years of experience in creating engaging content and copywriting for various media outlets, I have grown to become an invaluable asset to any team.
