Splendido

The lane from Portofino's harbour turns uphill through olives and bougainvillea and arrives at a salmon-pink villa with green shutters. Splendido, A Belmond Hotel in Portofino has stood here since the sixteenth century, first as a Benedictine monastery, then as a private house and, since 1901, as the hotel that made the village a resort. Its terrace is the best-known view on the Ligurian coast.

History

Benedictine monks founded the monastery on the hillside but abandoned it after repeated raids by Saracen pirates, who found the bay an easy target. The ruin passed to the Baratta family, who rebuilt it as a villa in the nineteenth century and in 1901 opened it as a hotel. The Riviera di Levante was then becoming fashionable with British and German visitors, and Portofino followed. Orient-Express Hotels bought the Splendido in 1985, and under its ownership the guest book filled with the names that still define the place: the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Humphrey Bogart, Rex Harrison, and Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, who returned several times. A second house, Splendido Mare, opened on the harbour square in the 1990s and was rebuilt in 2021 to a design by the Paris studio Festen. The company became Belmond in 2014.

Architecture and design

The main building keeps the massing of the monastery, long and low against the slope, with a loggia and a wide terrace in front. The pink render and green shutters are Ligurian, and the gardens step down the hill in terraces of olives, cypresses and palms. Inside, the rooms are decorated in a Riviera manner, with painted furniture, striped fabrics and tiled floors. Splendido Mare, on the piazzetta, is smaller and more informal, with a 1950s feel to the interiors after the 2021 refit.

Rooms and suites

The hill house has around 70 rooms and suites, most with a balcony or terrace over the bay, which is what one books a luxury hotel in Portofino for, and the sea-view category sells out first. Splendido Mare adds a handful of rooms at harbour level, several with terraces over the square. Suites in the main house include one named for Ava Gardner, who stayed often.

Dining

La Terrazza, the restaurant on the main terrace, serves Ligurian cooking, with pesto, local anchovies and fish from the bay. The Pool Restaurant handles lunch. At Splendido Mare, the restaurant DaV Mare is run by the Cerea family of Da Vittorio near Bergamo, which holds three Michelin stars at its home restaurant, and Chuflay Bar on the square is the most watched table in Portofino.

Wellness

The heated saltwater pool sits on a terrace below the hotel with the harbour in view. There is a tennis court, a fitness room and a spa offering treatments, and the hotel arranges boats to San Fruttuoso and the Cinque Terre.

Weddings and events

Weddings take place on the terrace and in the garden, with dinner at La Terrazza, and the hotel can be reserved in full for a large party. Meetings use a small number of rooms inside the main house. The season runs from spring to early November, and the hotel closes in winter.

Location

Portofino is a village of fewer than 500 residents at the tip of a promontory east of Genoa. The hotel is a few minutes on foot above the harbour. Santa Margherita Ligure, five kilometres away, has the nearest railway station, with trains to Genoa and Milan. Genoa Cristoforo Colombo airport is about 35 kilometres away, roughly one hour by road, and Milan Malpensa is around two and a half hours.