The First Roma Arte: The First Roma Arte: a living gallery in a Roman palazzo: Art, appetite and a quiet street behind Piazza del Popolo: CountryClubuk Members’ rates

There is a particular pleasure, after a day among Rome’s older masterpieces, in coming home to something that is still being created. The First Roma Arte understands this. Set in a 19th-century nobleman’s palazzo on Via del Vantaggio—close enough to Piazza del Popolo to hear the city, far enough from Via del Corso to sleep—it is less a conventional five-star hotel than a small, beautifully run private gallery with beds.

The building belongs to The Pavilions’ First Roma portfolio. Its character, however, is entirely its own. Studio Marincola’s most recent renovation, completed in 2024, kept the bones of the palazzo and stripped away anything that might compete with the art. Dark wood, brass, marble and a palette of cream and deep blue form the background. Against it hang more than 200 contemporary works, curated in partnership with Rome’s Galleria Mucciaccia: a living collection of Italian painters and sculptors, many of them still working, some of whose pieces change as they sell.

This is not hotel foyer decoration. Giovanni Albanese’s sculptural cow, Call Centre, still greets arrivals. Teodosio Magnoni’s Corpo Lungo commands the central space. Individual floors are given over to single artists—Giusy Lauriola, Angelica Romeo, Licia Galizia and others—so that the journey upstairs has a curatorial logic. In the rooms, the idea is more intimate still: a guest may wake to Giovanni De Angelis’s monochrome photographs of Roman trees, or to a small private hang that would not look out of place in a collector’s apartment. An art-gallery consultant is on hand for those who want a proper tour, and purchases can be arranged. A personal shopper will do the same for Via Condotti.

There are 26 rooms and suites, which is the right number for a house of this scale. Prestige Rooms are compact and well finished at 25 square metres; Junior and Arte Suites add sitting rooms, blue velvet and, in the larger suites, the pleasure of a proper separation between sleeping and living. First Suites stretch to two sitting areas. The Spa Suites, and the Spa Suite Views above them, open on to private terraces with hot tubs and, in the best of them, a prospect of Roman roofs. The Presidential Suite, at 100 square metres, is the house at full stretch: two bedrooms, a dining room, and its own jacuzzi terrace. Throughout, the details are consistent—king beds, pillow menus, Nespresso, Acqua di Parma or similarly serious toiletries, marble bathrooms with showers and, in the suites, baths.

What distinguishes the hotel as much as the pictures is the kitchen. Acquolina, on the ground floor, holds two Michelin stars under Daniele Lippi, a chef formed at Il Convivio Troiani and burnished in the kitchens of Alléno, Crippa and Achatz—Mediterranean cooking at its best. Two tasting menus currently lead the delights: Periplo, devoted to the sea, and Anabasi Catabasi, which brings meat into the picture. Sommelier Francesco Aldieri’s list is equal to the ambition. It is, as several serious Italian critics have noted, the only two-star restaurant inside a Roman hotel—an advantage which can be enjoyed by guests to the full.

Upstairs, AcquaRoof Terrazza Molinari holds sway overlooking the rooftops: breakfast with a view, lunch, aperitivo and a relaxed evening menu, looking out towards Trinità dei Monti, Villa Medici, the Altare della Patria and St Peter’s. The ground-floor lounge bar is the place for a quieter drink among the pictures.

A Technogym fitness room is reserved for hotel guests. Wellness treatments can be brought to the room. Small dogs are accepted. Transfers, valet parking, laundry and a 24-hour host are all in place. The location does the rest.

Piazza del Popolo is two minutes on foot; the Spanish Steps about eight; Villa Borghese and the Ara Pacis scarcely further. The Vatican, the Trevi Fountain and Piazza Navona are an easy walk or a short drive. One is in the middle of Rome without being on parade.

Sister houses First Musica and First Dolce sit nearby for those who want to compare the portfolio’s other moods—one tuned to music, one to pastry—but Arte is the one for Members who care about pictures as much as pillows. It is a hotel that assumes its guests already know the Colosseum, and would rather spend the evening with a living artist and a serious plate of fish.

CountryClubuk Members may book The First Roma Arte at exclusive Club rates through Member Services, who will advise on rooms, dining at Acquolina and the practicalities of a Roman stay.

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