ROMEO Roma

A centrally located hotel with an innovative character and meticulous attention to detail. The design, conceived by Zaha Hadid Architects, is breathtaking in every stylistic detail: modern and elegantly crafted rooms, an eclectic and evocative lobby with bold yet perfectly executed combinations. The staff's service is attentive and punctual, yet informal when appropriate. We also dined at the hotel restaurant, which I've dedicated a separate review to, praising its skill and boldness. Bravo!

ROMEO Rome stages itself like a promise: a design hotel as a cathedral of light, stone and silence. Even the entrance area – this carefully composed overture – has something brazenly seductive about it, as if you’d accidentally slipped into another, more elegant reality. We weren’t there to look. We were literally at the beginning of a check-in: spontaneous in Rome, with the clear plan to check in exactly here – now, in this very moment. But before curiosity could turn into a stay, we were declared “disruptive, gawking tourists” within seconds and rather nastily shown the door; as if one weren’t looking at potential guests, but at an annoying backdrop that has to be cut out of the picture. On a whim I still asked for an espresso. The machine was visible, tangible – but apparently not for people you’re just dismissing with demonstrative coldness. That it wasn’t fully booked doesn’t surprise me. The place felt less like a hotel than like a haunted house: immaculate, empty, cold – a museum that despises its visitors. That’s how you don’t just let customers walk away, but take the very idea of hospitality with them. So it’ll be the Bvlgari again after all – at least there you’re a guest, and you’re not sent home like an unwanted noise.

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