Design Hotels has partnered with modern travel agency Fora to unveil a new three-day retreat designed to reframe what luxury travel looks like in 2026 – intimate, creative, and rooted in the people behind a place. Running from 22 to 25 May 2026, the experience has been crafted in collaboration with Casa Lawa, the multidisciplinary guesthouse founded on the slopes of Mount Etna by Lukas Lewandowski.

Positioned as the first in a new global series curated by Design Hotels, the retreat will take place at Palazzo Daniele in Puglia – a 19th-century aristocratic residence where contemporary art and historic architecture meet in quiet, deliberate harmony. With only 15 rooms, the hotel is being presented as a rare kind of setting: small enough to feel private, yet layered enough to support a weekend built around craft, conversation and sensory immersion.

This first retreat is bookable exclusively through Fora Advisors and marks the first full-package, multi-day experience for both Design Hotels and Fora – signalling a shift toward curated, high-touch programming that sits somewhere between a hotel stay and a cultural residency.

At Palazzo Daniele, the experience will unfold in a space defined by frescoed ceilings, mosaic floors and site-specific works. The hotel’s design is curated by Francesco Petrucci, the last heir to the Daniele family, alongside Gabriele Salini, whose artistic direction has helped shape Palazzo Daniele into one of Italy’s most quietly influential design-led stays. The result is a setting that feels more like a private home or a contemporary gallery than a conventional luxury hotel – an intentional match for a retreat designed to spark what organisers describe as a creative alchemy of food, people and place.

Ceara Sadler, Senior Director of Brand and Commercial, Americas, at Design Hotels, described the partnership as a natural evolution of the brand’s programming.

“As we continue to evolve how Design Hotels creates transformative travel, this retreat represents a natural extension of the work we have built closely with our hotels and long-time creative collaborators like Casa Lawa,” she said. “Partnering with Fora allows us to expand the reach of this programming and connect with a new community of like-minded travelers. It is a partnership grounded in commonality, and we are excited to see it grow.”

The weekend’s central focus is food as a form of cultural language, delivered through a series of cookery masterclasses led by Casa Lawa. Rather than building the programme around spectacle, the retreat leans into one of Italy’s most iconic – and deceptively simple – dishes: Pasta with Salsa di Pomodoro. Guests will learn to make it using fresh local ingredients, ancient Apulian techniques, and flour milled from heritage grains.

Alongside pasta-making, the retreat will explore traditional dairy craft, with guests learning how to prepare ricotta and primosale using time-honoured methods still preserved by Salento’s local artisans. The emphasis is on process and provenance – the kind of culinary knowledge typically passed down through families and small communities, rather than packaged for tourists.

For Fora, the partnership reflects a growing demand for luxury experiences that feel genuinely immersive, with a clear point of view and limited access.

“The future of luxury travel will be defined by incredible experiences, and partnering with Design Hotels to provide an exclusive retreat to Fora clients is a perfect reflection of that,” said Henley Vazquez, co-founder of Fora. “This retreat is exactly the kind of immersive, culturally rich journey our advisors are excited to bring to their clients. Palazzo Daniele provides an extraordinary setting for travelers to slow down, learn from local artisans, and experience Puglia in a way that simply isn’t possible through traditional tourism.”

With only 15 rooms available at Palazzo Daniele, the retreat is expected to appeal to travellers seeking high-design intimacy and a more personal form of Italian hospitality – one where the luxury is not defined by scale, but by access, attention, and the rare opportunity to learn directly from the people shaping modern Italy’s creative landscape.