Il San Pietro di Positano

Two kilometres east of Positano, on the coast road towards Praiano, a small chapel dedicated to Saint Peter stands on a headland above the sea. The hotel that Carlino Cinque began building around it in the 1960s took its name, and Il San Pietro di Positano opened in 1970 with a handful of rooms. It grew downwards, terrace by terrace, until the cliff was a hotel from the road to the water.

History

Carlino Cinque was already a hotelier in Positano when he bought the headland. He built with the local masons, using the terraces that had held vines and lemons, and insisted that nothing be visible from the road. The hotel stayed small for years, and its guests were often the same families returning each summer. After his death the hotel passed to his nephews Vito and Carlo Cinque and their mother Virginia Attanasio Cinque, who run it still. The family added the restaurant Zass, which holds a Michelin star, and have kept the hotel independent, as a member of Relais & Châteaux.

Architecture and design

The building is almost invisible from the sea: a stack of white terraces half hidden by bougainvillea, following the slope rather than cutting into it. Every room has a terrace and a view of the bay, and the public rooms are long galleries of Vietri tile, majolica and antique furniture, with windows framed by the plants that climb from terrace to terrace. The dining room has a wall of glass over the water. Below, a lift bored through the rock descends to the beach, where a bar, a tennis court and a second restaurant sit on the rocks at sea level.

Rooms and suites

There are 57 rooms and suites. All face the sea, with private terraces, tiled floors and bathrooms that tend to be large, some with windows onto the bay. The decoration is traditional for the coast: white walls, painted tiles, wrought iron and ceramics from Vietri, with nothing that would date it to a particular decade. The larger suites occupy the ends of the terraces, with two outdoor spaces and sitting rooms; a few rooms sit close to the water on the lowest levels.

Dining

Zass, the main restaurant, holds a Michelin star and cooks from the hotel's own kitchen gardens on the terraces, with fish from the local boats and lemons from the grove. Carlino, the beach restaurant named after the founder, serves grilled fish and salads at lunch beside the water. Dinner on the upper terrace, with the lights of Positano across the bay, is the hotel's set piece.

Weddings and events

The hotel hosts small weddings and private dinners on its terraces and at the beach, and the chapel on the headland gives ceremonies a setting few hotels can match. There are no large function rooms; events are sized to the house, which is never more than a few dozen tables.

Location

Il San Pietro is on Via Laurito, two kilometres from Positano's centre, and the hotel runs a shuttle into the village through the day. Naples airport is about ninety minutes by road and Salerno station about an hour; in summer the hotel's boats make the trip to Capri or along the coast easier than the road. For a luxury hotel on the Amalfi Coast, the distance from Positano's crowds is the point: the headland is quiet, and the beach belongs to the house.