Splendido Reborn: Portofino’s Grand Dame Enters a New Era

There is a moment on the climb above Portofino when the village suddenly becomes theatre. Pastel façades gather around the harbour, yachts sit motionless in the blue, pine and olive trees tumble towards the water and, high above the curve of the bay, Splendido appears through the greenery like the grand house everyone has been trying to photograph for a century.

The address has always understood the power of arrival. What matters now is that the hotel behind the view has changed substantially without losing the sense that it belongs here. Splendido, A Belmond Hotel, Portofino reopened on 7 June 2025 after the latest and most significant phase of a multi-year renovation led by Martin Brudnizki Design Studio. The result is not a reinvention of a Riviera icon so much as a careful return to form.

A restoration with memory

The original building began life as a Benedictine monastery and later became a private summer residence before opening as a hotel in the early twentieth century. Its mythology grew alongside Portofino itself. The guest book became a social document: the man later known as the Duke of Windsor was among its earliest signatories, while Hollywood and European society followed in the decades that came after.

Brudnizki’s intervention works because it resists the urge to make history look newly manufactured. Ligurian materials and craft references run throughout: Carrara marble, Lavagna stone, graniglia alla Genovese, painted details and furniture that feels collected rather than ordered by the container. Heritage photography and drawings of Portofino sit alongside patterns and colours that could only make sense on this stretch of coast.

That philosophy reaches the rooms and suites, where antiques, mid-century pieces, patterned fabrics and local references are mixed with enough confidence to feel personal. The Baronessa Suite remains one of the hotel’s most expressive spaces: a theatrical, aristocratic drawing room translated into a private retreat, with garden access, a terrace over the Gulf and direct access towards the pool.

Downstairs, Baratta Sedici has become the hotel’s new social pulse. Named after the Salita Baratta address, it pairs botanical murals and a luminous onyx bar with a drinks programme rooted in local ingredients and Portofinese flavours. It is precisely the kind of room Splendido needed: polished, glamorous and energetic, but still more interested in conversation than spectacle.

Dior takes up permanent residence

The clearest symbol of the new era is Dior Spa Splendido. Opened with the 2025 relaunch, it became Dior’s first permanent spa in Italy, extending a relationship that had already brought the house’s seasonal Le Jardin des Rêves treatment experience to the hotel gardens.

The permanent spa is conceived less as a clinical wellness facility than as a Mediterranean summer residence. Treatment rooms, a Dior boutique, terraces and relaxation spaces look towards the Portofino coastline, while the treatment menu combines Dior protocols with rituals created specifically for the setting. Splendidior, the signature treatment, draws on semi-precious stones and celestial inspiration, while other programmes focus on sculpting, tension release and recovery.

Beyond the spa, the essentials remain reassuringly cinematic: the saltwater pool suspended above the bay, the hillside tennis court and gardens shaped for long afternoons rather than hurried itineraries. Splendido has always sold a particular fantasy of time, and the renovation understands that the greatest luxury here is still having enough of it.

The table is still part of the theatre

Executive Chef Corrado Corti has been part of Splendido for more than two decades, giving the dining rooms something increasingly rare in international luxury hotels: continuity. La Terrazza remains the grand stage for Ligurian cooking, with the sea as backdrop and regional produce treated with restraint rather than reinvention for its own sake. Splendido Grill is more relaxed and naturally suited to poolside lunches and unhurried afternoons.

The point is not simply that the food is good. It is that the hotel still understands ritual. A long dinner, a piano after dark, a glass on the terrace before sunset, even a pesto masterclass built around Liguria’s most fiercely protected culinary emblem: these are the details that make a stay feel located rather than merely luxurious.

Villa Beatrice changes the scale of the stay

A short walk from the hotel, Villa Beatrice gives Belmond a new level of privacy in Portofino. Restored as an exclusive-use residence, the historic villa sits above the Gulf of Tigullio with its own gardens, sea access and dedicated service. Its architecture moves between Gothic Revival and Art Nouveau, while the interiors mix heritage pieces with Italian design and preserved decorative details.

For families, private groups and guests who want the service of Splendido without the choreography of a hotel corridor, the villa changes the proposition. Belmond describes it as a first-of-its-kind private residence within its portfolio, complete with dedicated butler service and chauffeur connections into Portofino and the surrounding Belmond addresses.

A love story Portofino keeps repeating

Splendido’s glamour has always depended on discretion rather than velvet-rope theatre. Clark Gable, Humphrey Bogart, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton form part of its twentieth-century legend; the modern guest list remains equally recognisable, even if the hotel’s appeal is strongest when nobody behaves as though they have been noticed.

This summer brought an unusually public reminder of the hotel’s pull. David and Victoria Beckham returned to Splendido 29 years after their first trip to Portofino together in 1997, before their relationship was public. That early escape later became the memory behind Victoria Beckham Beauty’s Portofino ’97 fragrance, built around bergamot, black pepper, incense, amber and vetiver.

There is something revealing in that. The best grand hotels are not the ones people merely photograph once; they are the ones people choose to return to when the original memory still matters.

Why Splendido still matters

Portofino has been reproduced so relentlessly in fashion campaigns, travel advertising and social media that it ought to have become a cliché. In person, it stubbornly refuses. The harbour is smaller than expected, the hills steeper, the colours more improbable, and Splendido still occupies the best seat in the house.

The hotel now holds Two Michelin Keys, and the restoration gives that heritage a contemporary reason to continue. For travellers choosing between nostalgia and newness, Splendido no longer asks them to choose. It is grand without becoming stiff, decorative without feeling staged and famous without needing to shout about it.

That may be the real achievement of the renovation. Splendido has not been turned into a new hotel. It has been made convincing again.

The details

Splendido, A Belmond Hotel, Portofino. Salita Baratta 16, 16034 Portofino, Genoa, Italy. Seasonal operation. Two Michelin Keys. Major renovation by Martin Brudnizki Design Studio completed for the 7 June 2025 grand reopening. Dior Spa Splendido is Dior’s first permanent spa in Italy. Villa Beatrice is available as an exclusive-use private residence. For current room inventory, seasonal opening dates, inclusions and live rates, check Belmond directly before publication.

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