A family venture blending tradition, sustainability, and a contemporary vision of hospitality. Melanie and Michael represent the fourth generation at the helm of Gourmet & Boutiquehotel Tanzer, while the cuisine bears the signature of Chef Armando Gattuso.
In South Tyrol, where the culture of hospitality intertwines with the Alpine landscape, Gourmet & Boutiquehotel Tanzer stands out as an establishment that successfully combines family history, sustainable architecture, and fine dining. Today, the hotel is managed by Melanie and Michael Baumgartner-Rieder—the family’s fourth generation—who have reinterpreted tradition with a modern perspective while keeping authenticity, quality, and guest care at the heart of their approach.
A pivotal moment in the hotel’s evolution was its complete renovation in 2015. The building was reimagined based on the principles of green building and modern timber construction, prioritizing natural materials, energy efficiency, and a harmonious dialogue with the surrounding landscape. The result is a boutique hotel with a minimalist, elegant design, where wood serves as both an architectural and sensory element, helping to create an atmosphere of well-being and tranquility.
The Baumgartner-Rieder family’s philosophy is reflected in a bespoke hospitality experience characterized by discreet, personalized service, contemporary interiors, and a deep connection to the South Tyrolean region. Every detail is designed to offer guests an authentic experience where comfort, nature, and sustainability coexist in perfect balance.
A standout feature of the hotel is its culinary offering, led by Chef Armando Gattuso. His cuisine arises from the meeting of the finest South Tyrolean ingredients and Mediterranean culinary traditions, interpreted with technical skill, creativity, and respect for seasonality. The result is a menu that showcases the region through a contemporary lens, transforming every meal into a journey of discovery and sensory delight. Under the leadership of the fourth generation of the Baumgartner-Rieder family, the Gourmet & Boutiquehotel Tanzer stands today as an example of how tradition can evolve without losing its identity. It is a project that prioritizes sustainability, culinary excellence, and authentic hospitality, helping to strengthen South Tyrol’s image as a premier destination for high-quality tourism.
The Culinary Philosophy
South Tyrol, Unfiltered: The Essence of the Mountains on the Plate
In an era dominated by excess and complexity, Chef Armando Gattuso’s cuisine at Tanzer embraces the path of culinary and intellectual honesty. The restaurant’s philosophy is driven by a clear purpose: to express the identity of South Tyrol without filters, stripping away the unnecessary so that each ingredient can speak with complete authenticity.
The menu becomes a journey through the region’s culinary heritage, rooted in deep respect for Alpine culture and tradition. Here, technique is never the destination, nor a display of virtuosity intended to impress. Instead, it remains an invisible tool that allows each ingredient to reveal its true character.
The dishes are intentionally clean and immediately understandable, built around only a handful of visual elements while delivering bold, precise and memorable flavours. This is an ethical form of contemporary cuisine, where subtraction enhances rather than diminishes the identity of the mountains.
Armando Gattuso’s cooking is not created to showcase technical brilliance or pursue surprise for its own sake. Every ingredient carries a story, and every season reshapes nature’s language. The chef’s role is to observe that relationship, immerse himself in it and translate it into flavour.
Gattuso does not consider himself merely a guardian of tradition, because tradition survives only when it continues to engage with the present. At the same time, he does not pursue innovation as an ideology, but as the natural consequence of knowledge. Every dish is an attempt to transform this philosophy into an experience capable of leaving a lasting memory.
The Core Idea: The Interpreter of Place
A Method Beyond Geography
Armando Gattuso does not aspire to be recognised simply as a mountain chef or as the representative of a specific regional cuisine. His work is built upon a broader principle: becoming an Interpreter of Place.
For the chef, every place is the result of a complex relationship between nature, people, time and culture. Cuisine should not represent a destination through clichés or postcard imagery, but rather understand its deepest identity and translate it into an accessible gastronomic language.
“The interpreter does not create the land. He walks through it.”
From this conviction emerges a philosophy that extends far beyond the Alps, the sea or any specific geography. It is a universal method of observation, applicable wherever there is a food culture worthy of understanding and respect.
Between people and place there exists a continuous dialogue. Cuisine is the language through which that dialogue becomes visible.
For this reason, Gattuso’s method may be applied today among the Dolomites and tomorrow along the Mediterranean coast.
The Method
Ingredient Before Technique
Every dish begins with the ingredient. Technique exists only to make its story understandable—it is never the purpose of the dish itself.
Understand Before Cooking
Every element is studied, observed and fully understood. Only deep knowledge allows its character to be interpreted without compromising its original identity.
Interpret, Never Imitate
The territory is never copied or reproduced. It is translated through the chef’s personal sensitivity, turning every course into an interpretation of both place and time.
Use Everything
Every ingredient possesses value beyond its most obvious use. Reducing waste is not an economic principle but a pursuit of understanding.
Waste is not what remains. It is what we have not yet understood.
Simplicity as the Final Destination
Simplicity is the result of long study. Removing requires greater awareness than adding. Every element on the plate must have a precise reason for being there.
Every Dish Must Mean Something
A dish should be more than balanced or technically flawless. It should tell a story, create a connection and leave a lasting memory.
Respect for the Human Supply Chain
Beyond the Ingredient: A Community Working Together
Behind every dish created by Chef Armando Gattuso stand the faces, hands and dedication of local artisans.
Tanzer is committed to strengthening South Tyrol’s small-scale food economy by working closely with local farmers, producers and craftsmen.
From mountain livestock breeders to wild herb foragers and alpine cheesemakers, the kitchen becomes a guardian of human craftsmanship.
Respecting tradition means protecting the people who keep the region’s cultural heritage alive.
Every ingredient enters the kitchen carrying a story of genuine sustainability and leaves it transformed with complete respect for the natural rhythm of the seasons.
Chef Biography
Chef Armando Gattuso
Professionally trained in Rome, the city where his culinary journey first began, Chef Armando Gattuso later continued refining his craft among the valleys of South Tyrol.
Within this Alpine environment he developed a profound connection with place-driven cuisine.
His career, shaped by rigorous professional experiences and by cooking for some of the most demanding palates in contemporary gastronomy, has always been guided by an uncompromising respect for exceptional ingredients.
The Chef’s most significant experiences began in the Capital with Andrea Fusco, a Michelin star at Giuda Ballerino, another starred kitchen next to the Colosseum with Giuseppe Di Iorio of Aroma, then the North with the Milanese experience at Enrico Bartolini’s three-star restaurant at Mudec and also one during the two-star period, which brought him definitively to Alto Adige, at Einhorn Stube at the Hotel Stafler with Chef Peter Girtler.
Today, as Executive Chef of Tanzer Gourmet & Boutique Hotel, he expresses his culinary vision through a style that is immediate, elegant and deeply flavour-driven.
Entrusted with leading a restaurant already recognised by both the Michelin Guide and Gault&Millau, Gattuso embraces this prestigious legacy while bringing new energy through his own philosophy and method, giving fresh contemporary momentum to an already established gastronomic destination.
Tanzer Gourmet & Boutique Hotel SPA
Via paese 1
39030 Issengo/ Falzes (Bz)
Val Pusteria Dolomiti
Alto Adige Italia
+39 0474 565366
info@tanzer.it