The Best Places To Sleep In Rome

Palazzo Manfredi (££)

There’s no better place to contemplate the Colosseum from than Palazzo Manfredi. Take a suite that faces the world’s most famous amphitheatre, and you have an unrivalled opportunity to ponder an icon of Imperial Rome at your leisure. Take a table at the rooftop Aroma restaurant and you can enjoy the view with a side of Michelin-starred modern Italian cuisine. Ideally, you’ll do both because, though the Colosseum is ancient, the sight of it from Palazzo Manfredi will never get old.

Visit MANFREDIHOTELS.COM

Hotel De’ Ricci (££)

Lorenzo Lisi is the son of Robert Lisi, who is well known around Rome for his outstanding seafood restaurant Pierluigi. Around the corner, still close to Campo de’ Fiori and its market, Lorenzo has diversified the family business. He’s opened an eight-suite palazzo hotel where the focus is on wine. Each room has its own cellar and a Coravin to try the bottles within, but there’s also the Charade bar, where guests can broaden their palates under the guidance of in-house sommeliers. Francis Kurkdjian toiletries are among a host of other nice touches, and there’s always Pierluigi for dinner.  

Visit HOTELDERICCI.COM

Casa Monti (££)

New for 2024, Casa Monti is an appealingly bright and cheerful hotel with a rooftop bar and ground-floor terrace restaurant that belie its boutique size. Both are maximalist destinations run by teams at the top of their game. In the 36 rooms and suites, Parisian designer Laura Gonzalez’s arty take on la dolce vita is built around feature walls of boldly patterned wallpapers. Step outside and you have the old Monti neighbourhood to explore, with the Colosseum just beyond that.

Visit CASAMONTIROMA.COM

Rhinoceros (££)

It’s right in among the big-ticket sites of ancient Rome, but this is a thoroughly contemporary apart-hotel. A scion of the Fendi family gave starchitect Jean Nouvel free rein to drop stainless steel and gleaming glass in and around the exposed stone walls of an old palazzo. The industrial feel extends to the rooftop bar-restaurant, and you can count on Rhinoceros to make a bold first impression too – Fondazione Fendi has an avant-garde art gallery on the ground floor.

Visit RHINOCEROSROMA.COM

Villa Agrippina Gran Meliá (££)

Between the Tiber and the Vatican, at the top end of Trastevere, Villa Agrippina has things you won’t find anywhere else this close to the Centro Storico. The outdoor pool is the headline act, but the spread-out resort feel is also rare for a capital city. Rooms are light, bright and well appointed. The outstanding staff can help you organise anything from city tours – yes, you do have to go see a bit of culture at some point – to activities for the kids.

Visit MELIA.COM

Soho House (££)

Soho House Rome is in San Lorenzo, on the university side of the main Termini train station rather than the Centro Storico side, but the sites remain in easy reach. Available to non-members, its rooms and apartments will feel tastefully familiar to regulars, but there are local flourishes to add interest. The other brand staples are here too: the gym and Cowshed spa sprawl across a couple of floors, while Cecconi’s gets its own terrace on the roof next to the pool.

Visit SOHOHOUSE.COM

Hotel Hassler (£££)

If location is everything, we point you in the direction of the Hassler. A prima donna among Roman hotels (it’s often referred to as ‘the Claridge’s of Rome’), it sits at the top of the Spanish Steps, as it has done for more than a century. In that time, the cars that pull up outside have got faster – we almost missed a Ferrari for the Lamborghini and Maserati already there – but the air of unhurried luxury endures inside. Service is classy and interiors are classic. Take a room at the front of the building and you will wake to see the first of the day’s tourists arriving on the famous steps below. 

Visit HOTELHASSLERROMA.COM

Six Senses (£££)

Between the buzzing Vespers, horn-happy drivers and oversized tourist groups, tranquillity used to be hard to come by in Rome. It became a lot easier to find when Six Senses opened in 2023. In an 18th-century palazzo close to the Trevi fountain and the Pantheon, the wellness-focused group has created its first truly urban retreat. High-ceilinged rooms give a grand sense of sanctuary, while organic fruit and veg are grown on the rooftop, close to the hotel’s crowning terrace. But the apex activity here is surely the Spa’s Roman Baths experience – free to guests, it can be booked by visitors too.

Visit SIXSENSES.COM

Palazzo Talìa (£££)

Who knew film directors were so hospitable? First in 2024, Francis Ford Coppola opened Palazzo Margherita in southern Italy. Now Luca Guadagnino has overseen the conversion of Palazzo Talìa – a 16th-century school moments from the Trevi fountain. The visionary mind that gave the world Call Me By Your Name and Challengers has bequeathed us a maximalist boutique hotel where sensual interiors span the centuries to grand yet intimate effect: modern chandeliers are matched to the building’s original features, bold contemporary carpets share attention with ornate ceiling frescos. Start your evenings with oyster happy hour in the mirrored Bar della Musa, then sashay into the timeless Tramae restaurant – or its leafy courtyard – for dinner.

Visit PALAZZOTALIA.COM

Rome Cavalieri (£££)

This Waldorf Astoria hotel sits apart from the action of the Centro Storico, choosing instead to survey it all from a perch on one of Rome’s seven hills. A drive away from the centre, the Cavalieri has turned itself into a destination in its own right. Its opulence may be unmatched: there are no fewer than three Tiepolos in the lobby, and they just hint at the other treasures within its astonishing art collection. After a refurb in 2024, Heinz Beck’s top-floor La Pergola remains the only restaurant in Rome to hold three Michelin stars. If that’s the draw, be ready to book early – in a reversal of the norm, you might even want to schedule your stay around your precious reservation. The Cavalieri’s spa operates at a similarly high level, while its concierge team can arrange the loan of a supercar.

Visit ROMECAVALIERI.COM

Palazzo Roma (£££)

Linking Piazza del Popolo to Piazza Venezia, Via del Corso is one of Rome’s best known shopping streets. Between the big-name brands and local boutiques, there’s a 19th-century palazzo that’s recently become a fine hotel. Palazzo Roma retains the building’s frescoes, parquet floors, marble staircase and even its original piano – now played each evening in the Music Room. What it’s added is pops of colour, from the furnishings in its 39 rooms to the flowers in its public spaces. The restaurant cocoons diners in one of the most magnificent frescoes of all.

Visit PALAZZOROMA.COM

Palazzo Ripetta (£££)

Palazzo Ripetta stands out from many of its five-star rivals as a proudly independent hotel. It’s run today by the same family that first saw the potential of this 17th-century palace back in the 1960s. Once you’ve settled in – take the Wellness suite and you’ll get your own sauna – rooftop Etere is the place for early evening cocktails and cicchetti, then there’s elegantly laid-back San Bayon for a Mediterranean dinner. The hotel also houses an art collection that spans Italian sculpture to American street art.

Visit PALAZZORIPETTA.COM

Hotel Vilòn (£££)

This is another old building turned new hotel. Part of the Shedir Collection, which operates Palazzo Roma (on this list) and three other properties around Rome, Hotel Vilòn was once an annex to the Palazzo Borghese. After a makeover by a theatre set designer, it now has 17 eye-catching rooms and suites, as well as a restaurant putting modern twists on Roman classics. Close to the Spanish Steps, Vilòn makes an excellent base for wandering the top-end boutiques of Via Condotti. 

Visit HOTELVILON.COM

Hotel de Russie (£££)

Pablo Picasso and Jean Cocteau once stayed in adjoining rooms here, but the ace still in Hotel de Russie’s hand today is its Secret Garden. So close to ever percolating Piazza del Popolo, it’s a genuine surprise to look up from the courtyard of its bar-restaurant and see a series of lush terraces rising towards Villa Borghese. Inside, the facilities and service are as exemplary as you’d expect from Rocco Forte – and the marble bathrooms are an immoderate joy.

Visit ROCCOFORTEHOTELS.COM

JK Roma (£££)

JK Place runs cool boutique hotels in Paris, Milan, Capri and Rome that are united by a refreshingly modern approach to hospitality. In the Italian capital, that means pristine mid-century interiors to suit a building that was once an architecture school, but no formal restaurant. Instead, there’s a laid-back café-bar. Space precludes a spa too, but rooms are well appointed and the location – between the Tiber and the Spanish Steps – is hard to beat.

Visit JKROMA.COM

Hotel de la Ville (£££)

When Rocco Forte opened the Hotel de la Ville a few years back, it raised some serious competition to the storied Hassler next door. With the Keats-Shelley House also close by, interiors take inspiration from the ‘grand tour’ so beloved of romantic poets and young gents who would travel Europe collecting curios and knowledge with equal enthusiasm. By running together three historic buildings, the hotel made space a non-issue. The spa and gym impress with both their size and attention to detail, but don’t miss the rooftop Cielo bar with its views across the Spanish Steps and beyond.

Visit ROCCOFORTEHOTELS.COM 

Fendi Private Suites (£££)

On the third floor of its flagship Palazzo Fendi boutique on Via del Corso, the Italian luxury group has seven Private Suites. Each one is both lavish accommodation and showcase for the brand’s impeccable aesthetic. A level above the suites is Rainer Becker’s appropriately luxe Japanese restaurant Zuma. Go another floor up and the Zuma Lounge is where you’ll find breakfast and, later in the day, a fashionable crowd gathering for cocktails.

Visit FENDIPRIVATESUITES.COM