Basilicata’s MICHELIN Key hotels doubled from two to four in 2026, and all four are in the province of Matera. Vetera Matera enters at Two Keys and Torre Fiore Hotel Masseria, at Pisticci, at One, while Sextantio Le Grotte della Civita, in Matera, and Palazzo Margherita, at Bernalda, keep the One Key they held in 2025. Basilicata had no Two-Key hotel in 2025. Two of the four are cave hotels in the Sassi of Matera, and the other two stand on the Ionian side of the province, in a palazzo and a masseria. Together they have 69 rooms. The tiers come from MICHELIN’s complete list of the Italian Keys, published in Italian on 18 September, and the regional count is ours. Matera is often paired with Puglia, whose 16 Key hotels are in our separate list.
One at Two Keys, three at One: Basilicata on MICHELIN’s 2026 list
Tiers and towns are as MICHELIN prints them, and room counts are those on each hotel’s MICHELIN page.
| Keys | Hotel | Town | Rooms |
|---|---|---|---|
| Two | Vetera Matera (new) | Matera | 23 |
| One | Palazzo Margherita | Bernalda | 9 |
| One | Sextantio Le Grotte della Civita | Matera | 24 |
| One | Torre Fiore Hotel Masseria (new) | Pisticci | 13 |
The largest is Sextantio, with 24 rooms, one more than Vetera Matera. The smallest is Palazzo Margherita, with nine.
Vetera Matera, an albergo diffuso over the Sasso Barisano
“The cave hotels of Matera have evolved from a novelty to one of the hospitality wonders of the world”, MICHELIN writes, and the opening of Vetera Matera, at Rione Vetera 28, “marked a new high” for the albergo diffuso, the hotel spread through a town’s old buildings. Its 23 rooms range from suites with views to “subterranean refuges with vaulted ceilings and natural stone walls”, and the Artema restaurant and the Elysium spa are carved from the same porous limestone. MICHELIN’s Italian text points to its view over the Sasso Barisano, one of the two districts of the Sassi. Vetera Matera is one of the six new names at Two Keys in Italy, as in our list of the 49 Two-Key hotels. For dinner in town, Vitantonio Lombardo holds a MICHELIN Star in the current guide. The 2027 guide for Italy is unveiled on 12 November.
Sextantio Le Grotte della Civita: rooms inside the caves
Sextantio stands at Via Civita 28, in the Sasso Barisano. “Here the hotel rooms occupy the caves themselves”, MICHELIN writes, in houses carved into the hillside, “some of them dating back to Paleolithic times”. There are 24 of them. “Your bathroom may be a bare rock cavern”, the page goes on, but “your bathtub is the finest money can buy”. The inspectors add a line that sums up the place: “Prehistoric man might never have ventured outside the caves if they had bathrooms like these”. The hotel has a restaurant, a bar and a lounge, with spa treatments on request. Bari airport is about 60 kilometres away.
Palazzo Margherita and Torre Fiore, towards the Ionian Sea
The other two face the Ionian coast. Palazzo Margherita, at Corso Umberto 64 in Bernalda, is a 19th-century palazzo with hand-painted ceiling frescoes and nine suites, “three that open onto the garden”. “The look is stylish in a classic way”, MICHELIN writes. “Facilities include a swimming pool, a garden surrounding a picturesque fountain, an eat-in kitchen”, and the café and pizzeria are on the town square. “The hilltop town is a ten-minute drive from the beautiful Ionian Sea”, and Metaponto station is ten minutes away. It is, in MICHELIN’s words, “the kind of place where you can put your feet up”.
Torre Fiore Hotel Masseria, at Contrada Terranova in Pisticci, is the second newcomer. “This whitewashed structure is uniquely ornamented”, and its 13 rooms and suites are set around the main building like a small village. “Its hilltop perch offers a view of the not-so-distant Ionian Sea”. The rooms, “in classic Italian boutique-hotel style, freely mix antique and modern elements”, and “its small size ensures that the hospitality feels personal”. The restaurant serves the cooking of Basilicata, is open to the public and runs cooking classes. There is a pool, a garden and a wine cellar.
The Luxury.it perspective
Basilicata offers two ways to stay. In Matera the rooms are inside the rock, in the Sassi, while on the Ionian side they are in a palazzo or a masseria, with the sea a short drive away. All four are small. They range from nine rooms to 24, and the two new Keys of 2026 add 36 rooms between them. None of the pages gives opening dates, so the list works for a winter visit to the Sassi as well as a summer one on the coast. A trip can join both halves of the province in a few days. It can also cross into Puglia, with the white towns and masserie of the Valle d’Itria within reach.
Related guides
Italy’s 17 Three-Key hotels · Europe’s Three-Key hotels · The Key hotels of Tuscany beyond Florence · All 7 Key hotels in Umbria
