Ristorante Su Gologone

A restaurant that began before the hotel

Su Gologone is today a hotel known throughout Sardinia, but it was born as a restaurant in 1967. It was opened by Giuseppe "Peppeddu" Palimodde and his wife, Pasqua Salis Palimodde, whose recipes are the foundation of the house, beside the spring of the same name, in the Oliena countryside. At the time the area had a reputation as bandit country and the idea seemed madness; the restaurant ended up attracting customers from all over the world, and from its success the rooms came later. Today it is run by three generations of women: Pasqua, her daughter Giovanna and Camilla.

What to eat

The cooking is that of the Barbagia: simple, strongly flavoured, made with sheep's cheese, bread, oil and pasta worked by hand every day. The centre of the dining room is a great fireplace where meat is slowly roasted on spits. What almost everyone comes for is the porceddu allo spiedo, suckling pig roasted on the spit. Before that, pasta: culurgiones filled with ricotta or maccarones de busa, the pasta rolled on a rod; or pane frattau, carasau bread with tomato, cheese and egg. For dessert, seadas with honey, the shepherds' fried cheese pastry.

Besides the typical restaurant, with terrace and fireplace, the house has other spaces that open according to the day, mainly for hotel guests: dinners of Barbagia tradition at Sa Corte e Su Re, lunches under the olive trees at Sos Nidos, the wood oven of the Nido del Pane and a dinner in the vegetable garden.

Booking and getting there

You book lunch or dinner with the form on its website, by WhatsApp or by phone. The website does not publish hours, closing days or prices: ask when you book, and expect a restaurant that is mid-to-upper priced for the area. It is about 6 km from Oliena on the Dorgali road and a few minutes from the car park of the Su Gologone spring. From the foot of Tiscali, in the Lanaittu valley, it is a quarter of an hour by car.