The pandemic has led even the most dedicated urbanites to question city life: expensive rents leading to cramped living with questionable roommates, a lack of accessible green spaces, and excessive environmental pollution. These have long been the prices city dwellers paid for the perks of metropolitan living—entertainment, culture, and comfort—all of which the pandemic swiftly stripped away.
As a result, many people dream of escaping the city. For those who remain, the importance of the “outside” has surged, evident in the skyrocketing value of homes with terraces or even just balconies. The desire for time in nature is at an all-time high.
Escape from the City
What remains an escapist fantasy for most became a thoughtful reality for Carol Choi and Francesco Scarrone, a couple in both life and work. In the summer of 2019, they opened Rantan Farmhouse in Trausella, a mountain town in Val Chiusella, officially within Turin province but far from the city’s frenetic pace.
Carol and Francesco met while working in the kitchen of Copenhagen’s acclaimed Relæ, under the guidance of chef Christian Puglisi. Their experience in the world’s culinary elite inspired them to create a business that upends many conventions of traditional dining.
Trading City Life for Country Life
Rantan’s dining space centers around a single communal table with 14 seats, set beside an open kitchen—the heart of the farmhouse, serving as both restaurant and home kitchen for Carol and Francesco. The interiors blend Italian mountain style—stone, wood, fireplaces—with Nordic-inspired, minimalist warmth evocative of Danish hygge.
The chefs offer a unique, inclusive menu for all guests at the table. Vegetarian options are available with notice. Their reopening is scheduled from January onward (pandemic allowing), with three weekly services: Sunday lunch is open to external guests, while Friday and Saturday dinners are reserved for overnight guests staying in one of two cozy, Franciscan-inspired rooms.
This approach allows for a more sustainable, human pace in hospitality—countering the notoriously demanding hours and energy required in the chef’s world, and ensuring genuine care for guests and staff alike.
A Micro-Seasonal Rustic Menu
At Rantan, the weekly menu is shaped by what’s grown in the farmhouse’s own fields and gardens. Seasonality and availability dictate the dishes—an approach rarely seen, even among the world’s most farm-focused restaurants. What isn’t grown on site comes from local producers who share Carol and Francesco’s values.
Seasonality becomes a creative asset: in winter, preserved summer produce—kept in oil, vinegar, sugar, or salt and transformed by fermentation—brings new flavors and textures to the table, celebrating the bounty of every season.
Universal Kitchen with Farm-to-Table Cuisine
Meals start with the ceremonial serving of a whole, warm loaf of bread—a symbol of the chefs’ hospitality—followed by about ten small shared courses. The menu is not tied to a specific geographic identity: Carol and Francesco cook what they love, letting authentic flavors shine without unnecessary manipulation.
Popular dishes include Roasted Summer Cabbage with Toasted Rye Bread, Thyme, and Lemon; Beet Schnitzel with Fennel Mayonnaise; Potatoes Confit-style with Preserved Trout Roe; and Korean Ssäm (roasted pork belly) with Amaranth Leaves, Green Sauce, and Pickled Wild Garlic. The entire tasting menu is available for just €38, the price of a single starter at the prestigious restaurant where the chefs first met.
Though few in the industry may follow such a visionary path, Rantan’s independent, borderless approach serves as an inspiration to chefs and diners alike, pointing toward a more sustainable and creative future for dining.
