No matter where you’re coming from, Portofino isn’t the easiest spot to reach. This crown jewel of the Italian Riviera—and corner of the world long beloved by the international jet set—sits the furthest tip of a small peninsula that juts out into the Mediterranean, requiring a drive along hair-raising roads, winding their way along the dramatic cliffs and bays that run from Genoa in one direction, or the north of Tuscany in the other. But once you arrive, you quickly understand why people make the effort. Portofino is Italy at its breeziest and most beautiful: a picture-postcard jumble of colorful buildings clustered around an impossibly picturesque harbor, with church spires and lush forests above and the shimmering Ligurian Sea beyond.
You’ll need to head up one of the nearby hills, however, to discover the Italian Riviera’s real crown jewel: Splendido, A Belmond Hotel. Once an abandoned Benedictine monastery, the property was completely overhauled in the 19th century to become the eye-poppingly lavish summer home of an Italian baron; in 1902, it opened its doors as a hotel for the first time, quickly becoming a hot spot for some of the world’s most glittering stars. And when I say glittering, I mean glittering: The list of former guests includes everyone from the Duke of Windsor to Winston Churchill, Grace Kelly to Madonna; the hotel was even one of the few constants in Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor’s turbulent romance, with Burton proposing with an enormous Bulgari rock on one of its famous wisteria-clad terraces. (And if you needed further proof the hotel has lost none of its shine, more recent overnighters include the likes of Dua Lipa—that’s a woman who knows how to holiday.)
This summer, however, Splendido is opening a new chapter as it returns after a top-to-toe renovation by one of the interiors world’s buzziest designers, Martin Brudnizki. (You might know him from his much-Instagrammed pink-and-gold bathrooms at the London private member’s club Annabel’s, or the candy-colored delights of Paris’s Le Grand Mazarin hotel.) Given the Swedish-born, London-based designer’s signature maximalist style, in the lead-up to the grand unveiling, the expectation was la dolce vita glamour on steroids.
But before I could see all of that, I had to get there. (And as I mentioned, reaching Portofino can be an Odyssean feat.) After an early morning flight from London to Milan—and a two-and-a-half hour drive through the Ligurian countryside—I wended my way up the hairpin bends that lead to the hotel to discover a buzz of activity as the staff made the finishing touches to each space, as if applying the final layer of powder to an opera diva’s face as she prepares to hit the stage. For Splendido was indeed set to be putting on a show: over the course of the next two nights, a glitzy crowd was preparing to descend on the hotel for a blowout celebration, themed “I Feel Splendido,” to honor her return.
Naturally, the first thing I wanted to do was check out what, exactly, Brudnizki has been up to these past few years. And to my surprise, as I stepped into the light, airy reception area—with its elegant inlaid mahogany desk, light-as-a-feather gilded chandeliers, and the delicate pistachio-colored architectural details gently picked out in paint on the walls—the overall effect was more ethereal than exuberant. My first thought was: Where’s all that signature Brudnizki bling?
It turns out that, for this project, Brudnizki wanted to take a very different tack. He began by looking to a range of historic villas in the region—and researching a rich variety of local craft traditions—to foster a more relaxed air, like you’d stepped into an aristo’s home that had been owned for generations, but had recently been given a zingy overhaul by one of the family’s younger, stylish scions. It was a spirit that was especially palpable while being taken by Brudnizki on a tour of Villa Beatrice, the newly opened private palazzo reached by taking a five-minute wander through the fragrant gardens, where it then appears from behind a cluster of pine trees like a mirage with its dramatic Gothic-style turret and striking exterior frescoes.
Despite being meticulously restored by a crack team of Italian craftspeople over the past few years, the atmosphere is easygoing: while there’s a more formal dining and drawing room, the beating heart of the villa is a room filled with plush sofas with a pair of mammoth Julian Schnabel paintings—and a floor-to-ceiling cupboard unit decorated with a painting of a bucolic Italian landscape seen through a sfumato haze, with doors that slide back to reveal a TV for movie nights. (“Most of the furniture is vintage and has been sourced from local estate sales and auction houses,” Brudnizki noted of how they achieved the villa’s laid-back feel.) Finally, step out through the sliding doors and you’ll find yourself on a sweeping terrace with arguably the best view in all of Portofino that stretches all the way down to the mainland, best enjoyed on one of the rattan sofas with a spritz in hand under the shade of the striped butter-yellow awnings above.
As for my own quarters? Back up in the main hotel building, I was led to a tucked-away top-floor suite that had been given a subtle, sensitive glow-up, with a palette of duck-egg blue and burnt orange that extended from the ceramic bedside lamps crafted in the nearby village of Albisola, to the subdued hues of the jacquard bedheads, to the furniture pieces that had been artfully restored in the Genoese style. Fun, fresh, and entirely unfussy.
Once ensconced in your own little corner of the hotel, it’s easy to forget the scale of the place; but step out onto your private balcony (nearly every room and suite here has one) and look down across the lush gardens that seem to spill out from the main terrace and down into the bay, and you’ll quickly be reminded that this is a resort in the truest sense of the word. Meaning there’s plenty to do if you fancy something a little more active—tennis lessons on the sun-dappled court with views across to the sea, hiking through the protected national park that surrounds the hotel, or taking a tour to the Cinque Terre on the hotel’s private gozzo boat. But I was in the mood to simply relax.
Naturally, the hotel is perfectly equipped to cater to that too: I spent my morning in the newly unveiled Dior Spa, prostrate on crisp white linens as I enjoyed a bespoke massage that managed to solve the crook in my neck after that early morning flight, and left me practically floating. Meanwhile, in the afternoon, I was whisked away for a morning to Dior’s pop-up beach club in the neighboring village of Paraggi, where I ate an outrageously fresh caprese salad on one of the toile de jouy-clad sun loungers, before taking a dip in those cool, crisp waters.
By Friday night, however, it was time to move onto the real reason why we were all here: that party. As the sound of live jazz wafted its way across the property, guests including Kelly Rutherford, Baz Luhrmann, Catherine Martin, and Tina Tunakey began to congregate at the newly unveiled Baratta Sedici bar, which appeared to be the one space in which Brudnizki allowed himself to let loose a little. (Not least with the showstopping bar itself, a flamboyant medley of copper and backlit white onyx behind which the liveried bartenders were whizzing up negronis and martinis for guests before they floated back out to the terrace.)
Soon, it was time for dinner—staged along an undulating table that squiggled its way across the main terrace—and then, at around 10:30 p.m., a bell was sounded to let us know there was a surprise waiting for us down by the pool. With candles floating on the water, Jeff Goldblum was sitting by a piano to serenade the gathered crowd with jazz standards as further cocktails were passed around; by the time I headed to bed just after midnight, the disco balls were spinning and everyone seemed to ready to party into the early hours of the morning. It was all, well, pretty splendid.
The next morning, just as an army of sprinter vans was almost done whisking attendees (many visibly nursing hangovers) away, I watched a glossy black sedan snake its way up the hill, depositing the first guests of the season. Eavesdropping, I could hear they were Splendido loyalists who had stayed at the hotel—year in, year out—for the best part of a decade. Next, I heard their coos of delight echoing off the terrazzo marble floors as they discovered the marzipan-colored delights of the Baratta Sedici bar in the next room. The grande dame of the Italian Riviera may have got a little grander, but clearly, she’s lost none of her magic.
