Palazzo Manfredi

The Hotel

Palazzo Manfredi occupies a small Roman palazzo on Via Labicana, directly opposite the southeastern flank of the Colosseum and a thirty-second walk from the Ludus Magnus, the gladiatorial training school whose excavated foundations the rear of the hotel partly overlooks. The site has been continuously occupied since the early Imperial period — the foundations of the building incorporate Roman brickwork still visible in the basement spa — and was used as a private hunting lodge of the Manfredi family in the 18th and 19th centuries before being converted to a small hotel in the 1990s. The current iteration as a five-star Manfredi Fine Hotels Collection property opened in 2009 after a complete redesign by the Manfredi family's own studio, and the hotel was added to Small Luxury Hotels of the World shortly afterwards.

The 16 rooms (categorized as Prestige, Executive, Master, Family Suite, Ludus Magnus Suite, and the Colosseum Suite as the headline) are decorated in a contemporary classical palette — cream and ivory walls, dark walnut joinery, marble bathrooms, and Bulgari toiletries. The Grand View room category was added in 2018 and runs floor-to-ceiling windows on the Colosseum side; the Colosseum Suite is the single most-photographed hotel room in central Rome, with two-side glazing and an unobstructed view across the road. The Ludus Magnus Suite at the rear has a private terrace overlooking the excavated gladiatorial grounds. Bath products are Bulgari; the larger suites have B&O home theatre systems and freestanding marble baths placed for the Colosseum view.

Aroma — the rooftop restaurant — has held one Michelin star since 2013 under chef Giuseppe Di Iorio, with sommelier Alessandro Crognale running a wine list weighted to Lazio and Tuscan small producers. The terrace is the proposition: ten tables at most, the Colosseum framed as the dining-room wall, sunset light through the arches between June and September. It is the most-reserved proposal table in Rome and reservations should be made at the time of booking the room. Manfredi Sky Bar shares the rooftop terrace and runs cocktails and a smaller à la carte menu through the day. The hotel has a small fitness centre and a treatment room in the basement; there is no pool.

The position is the entire proposition. Palazzo Manfredi is one of the two Roman five-stars where the Colosseum is the immediate view (the other being the Hotel Manfredi-affiliated Manfredi Boutique Hotel a few streets away, which is smaller and not a five-star), and the only one with a Michelin-starred rooftop on the same building. The hotel is not competing with the Eden on grand-hotel theatre or with the J.K. Place on residential intimacy — it is competing on a single brief: the Colosseum view, the rooftop, the engagement-night arrangement. On that brief it is unmatched, and bookings into the Colosseum Suite for the full year tend to lock six months out for May–June and September–October weekends.

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