Some destinations earn their fame. Others simply wait, unhurried and unbothered, for the right people to find them. Abruzzo, Italy is the latter—a region of snow-capped mountains, Blue Flag coastline, and centuries-old olive groves that has somehow remained the best-kept secret in one of the world's most visited countries. Filomena Dean knows this better than anyone. A native of the small hilltop town of Castelfrentano, she has spent a lifetime watching travelers rush past Abruzzo on their way to Rome and Tuscany, smiling quietly to herself every single time.
"People go north, they go south—they go to Rome, they go to Sicily," Filomena says with the knowing smile of someone who has watched the masses miss the masterpiece. "But Abruzzo? It's a kept secret."
Filomena is the Retail Market Manager at Enterprise Bank & Trust. She moved to the United States as a teenager, built a life, and raised two boys on the recipes her mother and grandmother pressed into her hands like heirlooms. She fed her family simple sauces, handmade pasta, and olive oil so fresh it tasted like fruit. But Abruzzo never loosened its hold on her heart. She goes back every year. Each time, the drive from Rome—tunneling through mountains until the Adriatic suddenly bursts into view—still makes her catch her breath.
Abruzzo is one of the few places on earth where you can drive up to the snow-capped La Maiella mountain in the morning and spread your towel on a beautiful Adriatic beach that same afternoon. Even the roadside gas stations are stocked with fresh olive oil, prosciutto, regional wines, and handmade pastas. Budget fifteen minutes for a quick stop and emerge ninety minutes later, slightly dazed and carrying far more than you intended.
For Filomena, this region is not just a destination. Her family's story is written right into the land itself. Her father built a three-floor marble home surrounded by gardens and an outdoor kitchen where her mother cooked pasta and pizza in a wood stove. It is a place where family, local amici, friends from afar gather for la festa, with cousins traveling from across Italy to reunite each summer. Nothing speaks to Filomena's connection here more than the ancient olive grove behind her house. Her family has tended these trees for hundreds of years, passing them down as others pass down jewels. Every October, the family gathers with nets, rakes, and ladders to harvest the olives. They carry them to the local olificheria, where cold-press stones produce what Filomena simply calls the best olive oil in the world. “Fresh-pressed, it tastes like a Granny Smith apple at the finish,” she says. “Like real fruit—like something you can't quite believe came from a bottle.”
This deep connection to the land is precisely why Filomena will tell you, quite plainly, that Abruzzo has the best food in Italy. Positioned between the creamy north and the tomato-rich south, the region blends both into something entirely its own. The signature dish is pasta alla chitarra. Locals roll the pasta across a wooden frame strung like guitar strings, cut it into perfect ribbons, and serve it with a barely-there tomato sauce with pallottine (tiny meatballs). The pasta, the guitar, the sauce—that is dinner, and it is extraordinary. Then you discover rosticini: tiny lamb skewers the length of a finger, slow-cooked over coal and sold at every town festa for one euro apiece. "Nobody in the world really knows about it," Filomena says, leaning in the way someone delivers top-secret intelligence. Fresh cheeses arrive by dairy truck each week, announced through town like an ice cream van, and fish comes straight from the Adriatic every Wednesday. The food here doesn't just feed you. It converts you.
The region's culinary magic extends right to the water's edge. Along the coastline, ancient wooden fishing structures called trabocchi jut out over the Adriatic like patient sentinels. Builders crafted them hundreds of years ago, and they still stand strong today. Many have now become open-air restaurants where a chef cooks the catch of the day while the sea rolls beneath your feet.
Between these meals and excursions, you discover the true rhythm of the region. Embracing leisure is an art form in Abruzzo, perfected through the nightly ritual of la passeggiata. Every evening after seven, shutters drop, shops close, and the whole town takes to the streets for a communal stroll. Neighbors swap stories, children beg for gelato, and dinner plans form as if by magic. This is the land of dolce far niente: the joy of doing nothing at all. "Here, it’s all about being busy," Filomena laughs. "There, even in the midst of a full day, they find time to savor life—and doing nothing for a moment is seen as something truly worthwhile."
It is exactly this blend of rich culture, incredible food, and slow living that inspired Filomena's ultimate dream: a Bed and Pasta. She envisions an intimate retreat at her family property in Italy where guests wake up and learn to make pasta the way her mother and grandmother taught her. Imagine hiking in the mountains, hunting for truffles or fishing in the Adriatic Sea, and returning to cook your finds in the outdoor wood-stove kitchen. In October, guests would pick olives, press them at the olificheria, and take home a bottle labeled with their own name.
In Abruzzo, Filomena insists, you come as a guest and leave as family. Step back in time, savor the best meal of your life, and learn the gentle art of slowing down. Abruzzo may be Italy's best-kept secret, but once you've been, you'll find it impossible to keep it to yourself.
"There, even in the midst of a full day, they find time to savor life—and doing nothing for a moment is seen as something truly worthwhile."