SanBrite

The story

Crafted with passion, served with love

Where the Mountains Come to the Table

At the edge of the Alverà hamlet in Cortina d'Ampezzo, SanBrite sits at the point where a family farm and a serious kitchen become the same thing. The restaurant calls itself an agricucina — a word that says almost everything: cooking rooted in agriculture, in the animals and land that a family has tended for generations. Gambero Rosso recognised this commitment with 2 Forks, a distinction that reflects not just the quality on the plate but the coherence of the entire project.

Riccardo's Story

The voice behind SanBrite is chef Riccardo, and his philosophy is best understood in his own words: "The secret to my recipes is that ingredients are created first, and then the dish is composed." The barns, the cows, the morning milk — these are not decorative details but the actual starting point. His grandparents worked this land; his father taught him that work means sacrifice. Riccardo's cooking is his way of honouring both, translating the smell of pine, the taste of goat's milk, and the silence of the Dolomite woods into something a guest can experience at the table.

His wife, by his own account, was the reason he made cooking his profession. That kind of personal candour runs through everything at SanBrite — there is nothing anonymous about the place.

The Agricucina Approach

The menu follows the rhythm of the seasons without compromise, built around raw materials raised or sourced with direct knowledge. The kitchen offers tasting menus alongside à la carte choices, and the setting accommodates both indoor dining and outdoor seating — including the possibility of lunch in the vegetable garden or at altitude. The experience can extend to picnics and private events, and the restaurant's own cheeses are available to order.

Guests arriving from outside Cortina reach SanBrite by following the SR48 towards Passo Tre Croci-Misurina; the restaurant occupies the last house of the Alverà hamlet, a location that feels deliberately apart from the town's busier centre — appropriate for a place that measures its identity in proximity to woods and pasture rather than to ski lifts and boutiques.

A Place to Return To

"Being my guests means giving me the opportunity to build my heritage," Riccardo writes — and that sense of continuity, of a story still being written, is what distinguishes SanBrite from restaurants that merely reference their territory. The agricucina in Cortina d'Ampezzo is, at its core, a family's way of saying: this land is worth tasting.