8 of the best luxury hotels in Rome

Coming to Rome is much less a visit than a human ceremony of passage. Anita Ekberg’s Trevi fountain frolic in La Dolce Vita famously captured the Italian capital’s frisson — a pressure between the sensual Roman spirit and the hefty weight of 3,000 years of civilisation. Today, ten million guests make a pilgrimage right here yearly to wash in all its glories, gazing aloft at the architectural wonders of historic Rome and Papal dedications to the heavens at the Vatican, strolling its baroque monuments and wandering its prestigious galleries and shady gardens in noble palaces, earlier than dropping all the way down to the extra earthly pleasures. Overindulging is as Roman as the Tiber itself. Here are the best luxury hotels for an appropriately epicurean keep in Rome, from noble palazzos to marbled pieds-à-terre and hip townhouses.

Main photograph: Hotel Vilon, Campo Marzio

1. Hotel de Russie, Campo Marzio

Best for romance
Constantly refreshed because it opened in 2000, Rocco Forte’s de Russie has change into a Roman establishment — and never only for vacationers. Have a classy Romani lunch at Le Jardin de Russie (the acclaimed Fulvio Pierangelini is government chef) and return later for Franciacorta. The resort sits close to one of Rome’s central arteries between Piazza del Popolo, the Spanish Steps and the Borghese gardens. Impeccable service and Tommaso Ziffer’s neoclassical-art deco melange (zigzag flooring, botanical wallpaper, marble busts) seize a extra genteel period when Nijinsky, Picasso and Jean Cocteau had been the rock’n’roll friends in the constructing.

Spa Y
Pool N
Price room-only doubles from £990

2. Hotel Eden, Campo Marzio

Best for luxury
With a lit gold-coffered ceiling, Hotel Eden is the Roman grasp of cinematic glamour and has been patronised by King Alfonso XIII of Spain, Federico Fellini and old-school Hollywood. In 2017, the Dorchester Collection took over, reanimating its nice foyer, library and 98 rooms with pastoral frescoes, velvet divans and marble. Drama abounds: at Michelin-starred La Terrazza, Fabio Ciervo’s dishes have liquid-nitrogen particular results; the spa makes use of Gwyneth Paltrow-favoured Sonya Dakar facials, and the rooftop has widescreen views of St Peter’s.

Spa Y
Pool N
Price room-only doubles from £1,002

3. Hoxton Roma, Salario

Best for a cheaper break
Despite collaborations with native craftsmen, the tenth Hoxton nonetheless appears like a bubble of East London in Salario, a little bit buzzy suburb full of precise real-life Romans. The very first thing that greets friends in the foyer is the bar, Cugino, which can also be an all-day eatery; it’s a partnership with native bakery Marigold. Amid the atmosphere of Italian Seventies glamour — a hangover from the former resort right here — scruffy is virtually inspired. And, as ever, there are Roberts radios in the 192 rooms, starting from Cosy to Biggie. It’s a gem; properly priced and properly positioned for the MACRO and MAXXI galleries.

Spa N
Pool N
Price room-only doubles from £167 an evening

4. Fifteen Keys Hotel, Monti

Best for trendy stays
This elegant, elephant-grey townhouse may very well be in London or Paris. Fortunately, it’s in Rome’s Monti district, northeast of the Colosseum, which has lengthy since stolen the hat from Trastevere as the metropolis’s coolest neighbourhood. Young Romans Sara and Vincenzo (and designer Antonio Girardi) might have taken the “hip” route, however as an alternative they went for a classy, established really feel with basic stucco, Nineteen Fifties chairs, clear strains and parquet, all uplifted by shades of tomato purple, polenta yellow and ceramic blues. The 24-hour service and Brompton bikes make it doable to cycle residence in the center of the evening and order a martini.

Spa N
Pool N
Price B&B doubles from £196

5. G-Rough, Parione

Best for insiders
The modernist G-Rough is much less a “rough-luxe” boutique resort than an insider membership for devotees of Italian mid-century design. It’s owned by the seventh-generation Roman Gabriele Salini, who additionally arrange Puglia’s Palazzo Daniele. Iconic items by Gio Ponti and Joe Colombo are showcased inside the uncooked plaster partitions of ten suites, every devoted to a distinct designer, in a thin palazzo storico in Pasquino sq. (of “the speaking statue” fame) simply off Piazza Navona. The resort hosts exhibitions and organises “insider” Vespa excursions, and the ground-floor Gallery bar buzzes with architects and gallerists till midnight. It’s a brief stroll to the Pantheon.

Spa N
Pool N
Price B&B doubles from £271

6. Hotel Vilon, Campo Marzio

Best for one thing quiet 
This resort is an element of the Shedir Collection, a model that goals to create bespoke design-focused houses in storied buildings. There are varied takes on personalised Roman hospitality, and people are chosen to play hosts quite than simply managers. At Vilon, a hidden palazzo and former convent with thrilling views of Palazzo Borghese’s loggia and sculpture backyard, Annabella Cariello performs gamine doyenne as if in her own residence, strolling in a kaftan by 18 bespoke rooms — blends of Turkish cushions, floral carpets and Massimo Listri pictures, sourced by magpie designer Giampiero Panepinto, whose madcap traveller’s aesthetic references Kent, Kentucky, Pigalle and Sierra Leone. 

Spa N
Pool N
Price B&B doubles from £591

7. Umilta 36, Trevi

Best for new design 
The Shedir Collection channels Rome’s mid-century Golden Age in this daring, salon-inspired design resort close to the Quirinal Palace. It is housed in the former headquarters of Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, overlooking Piazza Venezia. Owner Eduardo Safdie, of Capri Tiberio Palace and JK Place Hotels, has a knack of selecting buildings with a backstory, right here giving an intriguing twist with Gio Ponti collectibles, Moooi botanical and monkey-print wallpaper, Rubelli materials, up to date artwork and tulip tables designed by Studio Caberlon Caroppi. The resort restaurant, an outlet of Safdie’s Milan restaurant, El Porteño, summons friends down the resort’s midnight blue corridors into the red-blooded world of an Argentinian polo membership subsequent door, earlier than a heady nightcap on the Flores roof terrace.

Spa N
Pool N
Price B&B doubles from £475 an evening

8. Soho House Rome, San Lorenzo

Best for a rooftop pool 
The first Soho House in Italy thinks outdoors the Roman field with a ten-storey brutalist tower in San Lorenzo, the previously gritty, now up-and-coming arts district close to Termini station and Sapienza University. Principal designer Severine Lammoglia’s retro pastel palette reinvents the “Three Ts” — terrazzo, travertine and terracotta — alongside Nineteen Fifties graniglia flooring and Bitossi ceramics. But Soho House holds a hand of recent Roman aces. Alongside its 49 bedrooms and 20 long-stay flats are a membership house, screening room, artwork galleries, a well being membership on the seventh and eighth flooring, a Cecconi’s outlet and a tenth-floor swimming pool with 360 views. A imaginative and prescient of Rome from a special approach.

Spa Y
Pool Y
Price room-only doubles from £185

sohohouse.com