Regular readers of Travel Talk will know I have a weakness for hotels with “proper,” old-fashioned hotel keys, which is to say an actual key attached to a silk-tasseled fob. I don’t want another plastic card. I have enough of those in my wallet already, thank you very much.
The storied Hotel d’Inghilterra in Rome is just such a one, a proper city hotel, with proper keys and “proper” – meaning superbly appointed – guest rooms, the majority of which have just been refurbished in exquisite taste as part of a general hotel renovation.
Located in the heart of the Roman fashion district between Via Condotti and Via Frattina, just yards away from the Spanish Steps, and within a 10-minute walk to the Pantheon and Piazza Navona, Hotel d’Inghilterra is an elegant 16th-century Roman mansion that became a hotel 170 years ago.
I am going to be using the word “proper” a lot in this hotel story.
The front desk personnel, who remember your name from the instant you check in, couldn’t be more proper, or friendlier.
“We want to make this the greatest gem in Rome,” the woman at the front desk said to me when I commented on the recent upgrades and refurbishments. And when I say the concierges are “proper,” I use the word precisely. These are upper echelon “Clef d’Or” concierges, which means none of them is going to need to turn to Google for even the most esoteric information about the Eternal City. No, these concierges don’t need to tap their keyboards while you stand in front of them like a lemon, waiting for Google to deliver its verdict, when you could just as easily tap on your smartphone and probably find the answer yourself and in half the time – because practically anything you need to know about Rome is most likely already stored in these concierges’ encyclopedic brains.
The Inghilterra also has a proper bar, a proper restaurant with a street terrace (for the wonderful local sport of people-watching), and thoroughly proper – but please understand, never stuffy – staffers – from the valet who parks your car or calls your taxi, to the restaurant manager, to the lady who does the flowers, all of them working in harmony with good grace and properly good manners. What a joy.
As for the look of Hotel d’Inghilterra, it is properly aristocratic but never intimidating. Yes, there are priceless rugs, zingy fabrics, velvet swags and those timeless miniature marine paintings in the ground floor salons (which have happily survived the refurb). But while all is undeniably opulent, the overall effect is, well, surprisingly cozy.
Looking at the guest rooms, superior rooms are compact; balcony suites a little larger; and what the hotel calls its sixth floor “iconic” suites are larger still, with their original, fully-restored 18th-century doors and other period features. But no matter your room category, all the guest accommodations have original art, invisible TV screens, soft-underfoot, hardwood floors and sumptuous marble bathrooms.
And newly introduced at the hotel following the renovation is the compact Spa Suite, which offers a wellness menu in collaboration with KamiSpa, a brand specializing in authentic Asian massage techniques with a staff fully trained in traditional healing practices and featuring Sisley products.
Other new attractions include a handy gymnasium, complete with advanced Technogym machines and a rooftop bar, Terrazza Romana, with views across Rome from the Quirinale to the Villa Medici. Stupendo!
Back at ground level, a typical lunch or dinner at Hotel d’Inghilterra might begin in the Romano bar – one of Rome’s loveliest small bars, where bar manager Angelo di Giorgi will mix you a wonderful Negroni with Ramazzotti amaro and French Citadelle gin, before ushering you across the narrow passageway to the hotel’s restaurant, Café Romana Bar & Lounge. Or, weather, permitting, which it nearly always does permit in Rome, to the restaurant’s outdoor tables on the very upscale Via Borgognona. If the evening I recently enjoyed here is anything to go by, the chanteuse might start up with a moody rendition of “New York New York,” so you will feel right at home, before moving onto “Volare,” or an inspired version of “Sultans of Swing.” (It’s always the right time and place for Dire Straits, no?)
Seriously, though, this small restaurant is beyond enchanting, popular with “real” Romans as well as tourists, with a Missoni store to the left and Armani to the right, and Rome’s flagship Gucci store only a block away.
And yet, let me tell you, that only a couple more blocks away, there is a small street market in a tiny piazzetta, selling fresh fruit, vegetables and floor mops. Because Rome is like that – a city of contrasts – ancient and modern; noble and workaday; lofty and humble; sophisticated and cosmopolitan and yet, at least compared to Milan, sometimes utterly parochial. These polarities are just one small part of the enduring joy of Rome, and Hotel d’Inghilterra is bang in the middle of it all.
As for famous guests, Hotel d’Inghilterra has had more than its fair share over the years. Henry James, Oscar Wilde, Ernest Hemingway (of course), Maria Callas, Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck, to name but a few famous names, have all stayed – the last one putting me in mind of an old joke to close with, one that is not entirely inappropriate in the movie-loving city of Cinecittà.
“Why did the film-mad chicken cross the road?”
“Because he wanted to see Gregory peck.”
On the question of Rome hotels – and there are now any number of magnificent five-star hostelries that vie for your business in the Italian capital – I would venture that the very special, very Roman, very “proper” Hotel d’Inghilterra has to be top of the pecking order.
Jeremy Wayne is a travel adviser with Superior Travel of New York. Email him at jeremy@superiortravel.com.
