The nearest substitute for Splendido is Splendido Mare, the fourteen room sister house on Portofino's harbour square. Villa d'Este carries equal grandeur to Lake Como, Il San Pietro di Positano answers the cliff and sea brief, and Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni delivers the grande dame tradition at a gentler rate.
Few houses wear their centuries as gracefully as Splendido, A Belmond Hotel, Portofino. A Benedictine monastery stood on this hillside until the sixteenth century, when pirate raids drove the monks away; Baron Baratta later kept the ruin as his summer house, and in 1902 it received its first hotel guests. The present chapter opened on 7 June 2025, when the house returned from a renovation entrusted to Martin Brudnizki Design Studio, complete with Italy's first permanent Dior Spa. Therein lies the difficulty. A legend of this order, open only from April to the middle of November, cannot seat everyone who wishes to come. The four houses below are the worthy understudies, each judged on what, precisely, it can stand in for.
Name the inheritance before choosing an heir. Splendido gives its guests four things at once: a terraced hillside above one of Europe's storied harbours, gardens rising in tiers over the bay; continuity, a single house receiving guests on the same site since 1902; renewed splendour, the Brudnizki interiors and the Dior Spa being barely a season old; and the Riviera calendar itself, that compressed summer theatre of sails and aperitivi. No single rival restores the whole estate. The ranking that follows weighs how much of the inheritance each house preserves, and at what cost to the purse.
| Hotel | House lineage | Best for | Price tier | HFK score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Splendido Mare, A Belmond Hotel | Sister house on the Portofino piazzetta, 14 keys | Nearest match | $$$$ | 9.5 |
| Villa d'Este | Cardinal's villa of 1568, hotel since 1873 | The equal, or better | $$$$$ | 9.7 |
| Il San Pietro di Positano | Family cliff house of 1970, Relais & Châteaux | Cliff and sea | $$$$$ | 9.67 |
| Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni | Grande dame of 1873, Bucher family since 1918 | Value with lineage | $$$$ | 9.3 |
HFK scores are our editorial ratings from each hotel's full review, weighted across design, service, location and value. Read our methodology. Price tiers are relative within Italian luxury resort hotels.
The honest answer stands fifty metres below it. Splendido Mare belongs to the same house and the same village; the question it poses is not whether the standards hold, but whether you prefer the harbour at eye level to the harbour framed from a hillside terrace. For those who want the full grand hotel apparatus, Villa d'Este presses an older claim on another shore entirely.
What it preserves: The name, the village and the standards, at a rate that generally sits below the big house. Fourteen rooms and suites occupy a former guesthouse on the piazzetta itself, most of them looking straight over the harbour, with the restaurant DaV Mare serving on the square from breakfast through dinner. The address is, if anything, more central to Portofino's daily ceremony than the hillside estate above it.
What it concedes: The gardens, the elevation and the sweep. At sea level you live inside the town's theatre rather than above it, and in August that theatre plays loudly until late. Guests wanting terraced quiet and a hillside pool should hold out for the big house or look to the lakes.
HFK score: 9.5 · Book if: Portofino itself is non-negotiable and fourteen keys' worth of intimacy appeals more than estate grandeur.
Read our Splendido Mare review →What it preserves: The conviction that a great hotel is an estate with a past. The villa was raised in 1568 for Cardinal Tolomeo Gallio to designs of Pellegrino Tibaldi, and it has received paying guests since 1873, a lineage even Splendido must respect. Its 152 rooms divide between the Cardinal's Building and the Queen's Pavilion, the celebrated pool floats upon the lake itself, and the 2026 season runs from 17 March into early January 2027, months longer than any Riviera calendar.
What it concedes: The sea. Como's shore is a different landscape, formal gardens and mountain water rather than salt air and fishing boats. The house is also large, with a public life to match; those who prized Splendido's seclusion will find Villa d'Este statelier and more social.
HFK score: 9.7 · Book if: lineage and grandeur outrank coastline, or your dates fall outside Splendido's April to November window.
Read our Villa d'Este review →Judged strictly against its peers, Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni asks the gentlest price for a genuine nineteenth century pedigree. Il San Pietro is no economy, but it purchases something neither Belmond house can offer: a private cliff with the sea at its foot.
What it preserves: The union of terraced garden and Mediterranean water that made Splendido famous, transplanted to the Amalfi cliffs. Carlo Cinque opened the house in 1970, and his family keeps it still, Virginia Attanasio with her sons Vito and Carlo, under the Relais & Châteaux flag. Rooms step down the rock face behind private terraces, a lift bored through the cliff descends to the private beach, and the kitchen holds a Michelin star at Zass.
What it concedes: Age and a village. This is a modern house by the standards of this list, born in 1970 rather than the nineteenth century, and it stands apart from Positano proper, so every excursion begins with a shuttle or a boat. Like Splendido it keeps a seasonal calendar, closing for the winter months; confirm your dates with the hotel directly.
HFK score: 9.67 · Book if: the brief is sea, cliff and family stewardship rather than a grande dame's public rooms.
Read our Il San Pietro review →What it preserves: Continuity of the rarest kind. The house opened in 1873 as the Grand Hotel Bellagio, and the Swiss Bucher family has owned it since 1918, four generations without interruption. A recent renovation left 73 rooms and 22 suites in fresh order, added a beach club, and brought the Luce del Lago spa, more than 1,500 square metres of wellness that the house describes as the largest on Lake Como. In 2025 it was invited to join Relais & Châteaux.
What it concedes: Polish of the newest kind. The renewal here is careful and incremental rather than a Brudnizki grand gesture, and Bellagio's promontory, splendid as it is, offers lake bathing rather than the open sea. High summer in Bellagio also brings day trippers in numbers Portofino guests will recognise.
HFK score: 9.3 · Book if: you want a true family-run grande dame, and would rather fund a suite here than a standard room on the Riviera.
Read our Villa Serbelloni review →You cannot, and it is better to know this before building plans upon a points balance. None of the five houses trades in a major loyalty currency; there are no Marriott Bonvoy, Hilton Honors or World of Hyatt award nights to be had, and Belmond, for all its LVMH connections, operates no points programme of its own. The workable instruments are older ones. The hotels publish their own seasonal offers, and both Portofino houses may be reserved through American Express Fine Hotels + Resorts, which adds breakfast, credits and favourable treatment for cardholders. A capable luxury travel advisor can arrange comparable privileges at any of the five on a paid stay. Compare the house offer against the advisor booking for your exact dates; the better answer changes with the season.
Three cautions, given as a concierge of the old school would give them. First, mind the calendars: Splendido and Il San Pietro both keep seasonal houses, and if your dates fall in deep winter the only name on this page still receiving guests is Villa d'Este, whose season now stretches to early January. Second, nothing here reproduces Portofino's particular harbour; Splendido Mare is the sole alternative that keeps you in the village, and it trades the hillside for the square. Third, our price tiers are relative positions rather than quotations. Coastal Italy and the lakes move their tariffs sharply between May and September, and a house that undercuts another in June may overtake it in August; verify your own dates against at least two sources before deciding which is truly the saving.
Splendido Mare, its sister house of fourteen rooms and suites on Portofino's harbour square, is the nearest match. The two share ownership, standards and the same village; what changes is the vantage. The big house watches the bay from its terraced hillside, while Splendido Mare lives at sea level among the yachts and the passeggiata.
Yes, in season. Splendido keeps to the old Riviera calendar, receiving guests from April to the middle of November. It returned on 7 June 2025 from a renovation led by Martin Brudnizki Design Studio, which also brought Italy's first permanent Dior Spa to the property. Summer weeks fill many months ahead.
Two credible paths exist. Splendido Mare carries the same name and standards at a rate that generally sits below the big house. Away from Portofino, Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni in Bellagio, held by the Bucher family since 1918, delivers the full grande dame experience at a gentler price than either Belmond property in high summer.
It is the one alternative that can argue the point as an equal. The villa was raised in 1568 for Cardinal Tolomeo Gallio and has received guests since 1873, with 152 rooms across the Cardinal's Building and the Queen's Pavilion. Its 2026 season also runs far longer, from 17 March into early January 2027, while Splendido closes in mid November.
The site began as a Benedictine monastery, abandoned in the sixteenth century after repeated pirate raids from the sea. Baron Baratta later made the ruin his family's summer house, and in 1901 Ruggero Valentini bought the property and opened it as a hotel in 1902. Belmond is its present custodian, and the 2025 renovation is the latest chapter.
No. None of the five houses trades in a major loyalty currency such as Marriott Bonvoy, Hilton Honors or World of Hyatt, and Belmond runs no points programme. The practical routes are the hotels' own seasonal offers, American Express Fine Hotels + Resorts for the Portofino pair, and a good luxury travel advisor, who can usually add breakfast, credits and upgrade priority to a paid stay.
Fourteen rooms and suites, most of them looking over the harbour, which makes it one of the smallest luxury houses on the Italian Riviera. Its restaurant, DaV Mare, serves breakfast, lunch and dinner on the square. Book very early; fourteen keys in Portofino is scarcity of an unusual order.
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