The picnic basket is the Bistro going out with you. It comes from an obvious observation: the best days here are the ones where you don't come back for lunch — you're in the sun, you're in a wood, you're on a bench with a view, and the last thing you want is to walk back to eat.
So we put it together, you collect it from the Bistro on your way out, and from there it's yours: take it wherever you like.
What's inside
Whatever the mountain is handing out, with no frills and nothing exotic. The plateau is made of alpine dairies, woods and orchards, and its cooking is a few things done well: those are what go in the basket.
The board is the serious part. There's Vezzena, the plateau's alpine cheese, which changes character as it ages — mild and buttery when young, sharp and almost peppery once it's had time. It's made from the milk of cows grazing up here in summer, and on a slice of bread with a thread of honey it's already a small holiday. Alongside it, Trentino speck, smoked and scented with juniper, and locally made cured meats.
Then tortel di patate, which you probably won't know unless you're from Trentino and which you'll be ordering again: grated potato, fried, crisp outside and soft in the middle, good with the cured meats and good on their own.
Bread, and seasonal fruit: in summer the plateau's berries arrive — raspberries, blueberries, redcurrants — which genuinely grow here rather than travelling to get here. And the cake of the day, which follows the kitchen's mood: apple strudel, a buckwheat tart, butter biscuits.
If you ask, we'll add a spritz, to open with your feet in the water. Not compulsory. Just a good idea.
Where to take it
Three places, in order of laziness.
On the shore, without moving. The honest option: fifty metres, a towel, done. The lake in front, tree shade behind, and the advantage of being able to go back for whatever you forgot.
At the Bee Garden. On the shore of Lake Lavarone, along the Prombis path, sits one of the Alpe Cimbra's four Bee Gardens: native flowers, boards explaining the work pollinators do, and an atmosphere children take to more than they expect. It's part of the Bee Trek, a long route linking Folgaria, Lavarone and Luserna — but the garden by the lake is within anyone's reach.
In the woods, at Il Respiro degli Alberi. Lavarone's contemporary art trail: sculptures built from natural materials, scattered among spruce and beech, that the forest slowly takes back. About two and a half kilometres of real shade. Eating lunch here means eating somewhere the loudest sound is wind in the branches.
One practical note
The basket is for guests and is ordered the evening before, not on the morning itself: the kitchen makes it fresh, and fresh things need their time. In the morning you drop by, pick it up and go. If you have particular requirements — someone who doesn't eat something, an allergy — say so when you order and we'll take care of it.
Taste, slowly. The place, here, is eaten at a walking pace.
The rest of the menu, the part that stays indoors, is on the Bistro page.
