VENICE . O2 . Peggy who? Venice new Palazzo
Second episode of our trip to Venice. In this one we talk about Palazzo Experimental, hoping that next time they will give us the Dorsoduro Suite.
PALAZZO EXPERIMENTAL
TWO
things are not in shortage in Venice: Bridges and Luxury Hotels. I don’t know if the Experimental Group team will ever consider building bridges, but so far they seem quite happy with Hotels. Their Venice location, Palazzo Experimental, was opened in 2019 and is definitely our New Favorite Hotel in Venice (we stole that from Vogue).
In a place like this, it is hard to design something that can compete with Historical Palaces, but the Palazzo did it by exceeding expectations in at least three categories:
1.
Location: located in Dorsoduro, overlooking the Giudecca. Here your eyes can wander and you can breathe the open sea. The feeling you have is very different from the labyrinthic canals surrounding Canal Grande. There you feel like “let’s grab a selfie stick and rent a gondola”, here feel more like “let’s jump on a boat and go trading spices in Java”. Unless it’s a foggy day, in which case healing your spleen by reading Thomas Mann on a terrace might be a better option.
2.
Details: the space is a sum of thoughtful design details. The overall mood is “Tati meets the carnival”, with geometric shapes, striped fabrics and a pastel palette of pinks, greens and light-blues. Cristina Celestino is the mastermind behind this elegant blend of Baroque architecture and contemporary style. The perfect place for serving ourselves a Martini, with a Murano Glass Olive, bite it at your own risk.
If you have to deal with Acqua Alta, a pair of boots wait for you in the cupboard. We can’t tell if the attention to details reaches the point of anticipating your shoe sizes.
3.
Hospitality: The staff is a mix of French and Italian hospitality and, as you would expect from Experimental Group, the hotel neighbors one of the best cocktail bars in town, Experimental Cocktail Bar Venice, where Lorenzo Di Cola and his team craft on-point cocktails balancing local ingredients and international taste.
Bonus:
from our room we could see Mariano Fortuny’s Showroom and Factory across the Giudecca Canal. The iconic fashion designer created its factory here in 1921 and covered the world’s Elites with plissé.
Palazzo Experimental and Fortuny Factory facing each other. I love how simply looking at the map makes you travel to Patrasso, Pola, Rabac, Corfù, … Time for us to jump into a Damask dress and take a ferry to Corfú, see you at the next episode, where we get all spritzy with Select Aperitivo.
