On a sweeping bend on the short stretch of road between Litchfield and Bantam stands a sturdy block of mansion with a sign out front. Made of rough-cut stone and backed by its own pond, the house has the permanence of geology, like it’s always been there. The mind wonders about the old stories contained in those sturdy walls even as you walk into its newest, Materia Ristorante. 

In venerable New England tradition, Materia is also an inn, with the house kept as original as possible, having become a four-bedroom accommodation. For executive chef David DiStasi, it’s been a long and globally winding road which led him here. “When I was 14, my father and my brother Michael [who now runs the inn] started a catering business,” he says of his early years in Watertown.