Food

How to Host a Relaxed, Italian-Style Late Lunch


Set on a remote, grassy hilltop in Tuscany, with a view over the rolling vineyards of Montalcino, the 18th-century brick-and-stone Arniano farmhouse, a former nunnery, has twice been revived by the Guinness family. Jasper and Camilla Guinness, a landscape architect and an interior designer, respectively, both originally from London, purchased the property in 1989, when it was a long-neglected, tumbledown relic, and, over the following years, industriously transformed it into a functional and lively family home where they raised their two daughters — and received a seemingly endless stream of visitors. The couple replanted the long barren scrubland that surrounded the property with olive groves, cypress, fruit trees and lavender; they installed running water and electricity; and they decorated the interiors in a freewheeling mix of British and Tuscan styles, sourcing rustic Italian furniture from nearby junkyards and enlisting local artisans to fabricate antique-style iron bed frames for the five bedrooms. The Guinnesses’ aim was to create a sense of “real comfort, not in the luxury way but in the convivial sense,” Camilla explained on a recent rainy afternoon, seated by the living room fireplace before a Sunday lunch hosted by her daughter Amber.

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After Jasper passed away in 2011, it was Amber, then 24, who led the second revival of the villa by inaugurating the Arniano Painting School, an annual series of four weeklong art courses during which up to a dozen students stay at the farmhouse and receive instruction from the artist William Roper-Curzon (a friend of Amber’s from London) as they paint alfresco, overlooking the Tuscan countryside. The idea was to “breathe some life back into the house,” said Amber, who assembles students for three shared meals a day, prepared by herself and an assistant. For the rest of the year, she and her husband, the journalist Matthew Bell, live in Florence, where she works as an event chef and consultant, but the couple spends frequent weekends at the farmhouse where, like Amber’s parents before them, they welcome crowds of friends for big Sunday meals.

On an unseasonably chilly day in May, when Arniano was free from the buzz of painting students, Amber lit all the fires in the villa and prepared a late afternoon lunch for her mother and a group of friends — writers, artists and designers from Florence — with a market-inspired menu of radicchio salad with cannellini beans and roasted almonds, fresh broad beans with pecorino shavings, a ring-shaped sheep’s-milk-ricotta sformato, sliced prosciutto and spaghetti tossed with lemon juice and Parmesan. As she cooked, her guests chatted in the living room and helped themselves to glasses of chilled Zisola, a fruity, deep red wine from Sicily. A guest’s dog scampered about, soliciting tastes of the charcuterie appetizer, before the group moved into the dining room, where the party continued. Here, Amber offers her tips for relaxed but artful entertaining.

“With the painting-class meals, I’m just trying to recreate the magic my mum and dad had as hosts,” Amber said, chopping almonds on the kitchen’s white marble worktable. “I was lucky to witness all those amazing lunches and dinners.” Her mother set the tone with “beautiful food, and very beautiful tables,” decorated with a profusion of olive branches, roses and other blossoms cut from the garden, as well as touches from her extensive collection of crockery, including blue-and-white Seville plates and intricately hand-painted commemorative plates made for the biannual Palio horse race in Siena. Her dad “would chat with everyone, whether it was the plumber or someone important,” said Amber, who maintains the same amiable spirit in her kitchen.

Cozy, thick-cushioned furniture helps establish a laid-back feeling at Arniano, even in the weeks when the painting course fills the house with newcomers. “We try to do things in the same way as when we have a house full of friends,” Amber said of those gatherings. It takes at least six or seven guests to form the collective spirit that gets people talking about something as abstract and personal as painting, she said, but lounging in comfortable worn-in armchairs — and eating simple, locally grown Tuscan food — can quickly bring a group together. “People get on so well that they have reunions in London without us,” she laughed.

While Amber describes her style of hospitality as “quite relaxed,” she has introduced a few codes to elevate everyone’s time at Arniano. “As long as everyone gets a drink right away, they’re happy,” she said with a laugh. Her husband makes cocktails at the living room’s bar table every evening at 7 p.m. and to set a slightly more formal tone for dinner, outfit changes are encouraged. “We all get dressed up after the day in dungarees,” said Amber. “It’s nice to put on a bit of a frock for dinner.”

Amber, who consults for the Sicilian-inspired, Florence-based fragrance brand Ortigia — whose owner, Sue Townsend, joined for the day’s lunch — keeps the villa full of perfumes. Before guests arrive, she places sandalwood soaps in every bathroom, and in the evenings, she lights prickly pear candles; their sweet-and-spicy smell complements the aromatic smoke emanating from the fireplace when it blazes on cooler days.

Meals at Arniano are served outside under the grapevine-covered pergola facing the valley or in the kitchen’s open dining room, where the table is always set with linens and decorative objects the family has collected over the years: white jacquard tablecloths, watery blue ceramic plates and a jumble of vases from local flea markets. On this occasion, Amber filled a kitschy glass vase shaped like the Leaning Tower of Pisa and various old silver creamers with short-stemmed roses, peonies and ranunculus sourced from the Piazza della Repubblica market in Florence. When possible, she also uses foraged branches, flowers and greenery from the garden, as “a throwback to my dad and everything he planted here,” she said.

“Mum was very strict about teaching me to cook,” said Amber, explaining that her mother has often asked locals for their recipes and zealously studied cookbooks by Marcella Hazan, the doyenne of Italian cuisine. Today, Amber keeps a binder of well-organized recipes, many passed down to her from her mother, whose pages she removes and affixes to the kitchen wall for guidance while cooking. The handwritten book of notes also includes tried-and-tested menus based on what produce is in season and available at the local market. While art is now a driving force at the villa, Amber said, “I definitely feel cooking is as creative as painting.”





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