How does a legend begin? When it comes to hospitality, the Cipriani could serve as a perfect case study. It all started with a bold gamble: in 1958, choosing to open a luxury hotel on Giudecca Island, where there was nothing (and that was its charm), was a risk that Giuseppe Cipriani, the founder of the popular Harry’s Bar, took with great foresight. Equal foresight should be credited to Count Rupert Guinness, who financed the project, which quickly became a destination in itself. People visit Venice for all the well-known reasons, and they stay at the Cipriani because it is one of the most glamorous hotels in the world.
Just take a look at the Hall of Fame in the corridor leading to the restaurant. On the walls, you’ll find photos of Liz Taylor, Richard Burton, Sophia Loren, Donald Sutherland, Mick Jagger, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, and George Clooney, our ambassador in the United States, who hosted his wedding party there with Amal and created a cocktail—the “Buonanotte”—which remains on the menu to this day. Think of any star in cinema, music, or literature, and they’ve likely passed through the Cipriani. It seems that staying there is part of the ritual of becoming an official legend. The hotel is another stage where actors, rock stars, and international artists stop performing and mingle with us mere mortals.
In short, it’s a dream machine where bold experiments and significant investments are made without hesitation. The goal is always to aim for the top, whether in haute cuisine, design, or art. Just to touch on recent history, this year they are collaborating with the brilliant Massimo Bottura for the cuisine, with Vania Ghedini as the executive chef at the gourmet restaurant Oro, where ingredients from the lagoon, from fish to vegetables, take center stage. Next year, the rooms will undergo a makeover with the involvement of another celebrity, currently under wraps. But to get a taste of what’s to come, take a look at the ground floor restrooms (rumor has it they’re the work of the exuberant Peter Marino). And then there’s art, a major theme for Belmond, the group to which the hotel belongs. For the 2022 Biennale of Art, in the back courtyard—complete with an English lawn, vegetable garden, and rose garden—Indian artist Subodh Gupta constructed a hut made from thousands of aluminum pots salvaged from villages, sending a message about the idea of homemade food in his country. Today, still part of the Mitico project in collaboration with Galleria Continua, there’s a site-specific work by Daniel Buren, playing with light and a series of colorful panels around a fountain. It’s easy to think: well, if they’re not experimenting—being part of a luxury giant like LVMH—who can?
But then there’s the A factor, atmosphere, and the HI factor, human intelligence, that add that intangible, scientifically unprovable value that makes Cipriani “the Cipriani.” The pale pink, the smiling and attentive breakfast staff, the carpaccio with the original recipe, the timeless Bellini (now also available non-alcoholic), the bathroom cosmetics (from fragrant moisturizing oil to sunscreen), the warmth and helpfulness of every single staff member, the vintage postcards, even the gardener tending the flowers early in the morning, and the passionate falconer keeping pigeons and seagulls away from guests’ lunches. We could go on indefinitely with these evocative images. But nothing feels more privileged than arriving aboard the wooden launch with the hotel’s insignia on the side, stepping out in a bathrobe early in the morning onto the terrace, coffee in hand, to gaze at San Giorgio Island, or lounging for an afternoon by the only Olympic-sized pool in Venice, which seems to have “borrowed” a piece of the lagoon for its guests. It may not be for everyone, but a dinner at Cip’s certainly is. At the floating restaurant on the Giudecca Canal, you can order mixed fried seafood with wasabi mayonnaise, grilled fish and shellfish, and Sant’Erasmo castraure. With the gentle sway of the old dock, it will feel like a dream: St. Mark’s Campanile on one side, the intricate façade of the Doge’s Palace on the other. There’s no point in going into further detail—you simply have to experience it.
