The Sersale family’s 10 rules of hospitality

The Sersale family have owned Le sirenuse for 75 years now. Which is a bit like owning the Eiffel Tower or Switzerland, or the rights to mozzarella. You sort of just assume such things are too significant to be owned, and especially not by such a lovely, normal, warm family as the Sersales. The place is a rare and beautiful hold-out in a luxury industry beholden to panic-room chic and corporate chains – a soulful, generational enterprise that has grown organically from the craggy rocks of the Amalfi coast over the decades, like pink bougainvillea. Now, after many years of planning, they have a new offshoot, situated a few miles west along the coastline in Nerano, famous as the birthplace of that lovely gooey courgette spaghetti. It may soon be famous for something else. Le Sirenuse Mare is an elegant beach club which cascades over three terraces down to the water’s edge, shaded by a canopy of fragrant stone pines. Here, the Sersales – Antonio and Carla, and their sons, Aldo and Francesco – discuss the ingredients that make it, and any space, so special.