At first glance, history feels omnipresent in The Venice Venice Hotel. A new boutique hotel situated in Venice’s Cannaregio district on the Grand Canal, a stone’s throw from the Rialto Bridge, this four-storey, 20-key hotel (with another 25 rooms launching soon) is a love letter from husband and wife Alessandro Gallo and Francesca Rinaldo, the duo behind cult sneaker brand Golden Goose, to their home city of Venice. Along the way, the Gallos have turned history into a living, breathing entity that resonates with contemporary travellers.
The hotel occupies Palazzo Ca’ Da Mosto, a stunning example of Venetian-Byzantine architecture that is the oldest stone facade along the famous canal. This structure dates back to the 13th century and has seen many lives, among them as a private residence, workshop, hotel and school. Over the past century, Palazzo Ca’ Da Mosto had fallen into disrepair, with water breaching its lower levels. The Gallos acquired the property from a host of joint owners and spent the global lockdown designing and transforming this listed building into an avant-garde hotel for guests looking to immerse themselves in Venice’s lengthy cultural and cosmopolitan history, and opened their doors to the public in 2022.
The Gallo’s act of opening a hotel returns Palazzo Ca’ Da Mosto to its identity in the 16th to 18th centuries, when it was known as Albergo Leon Biano, or The White Lion Hotel – a hotel with distinguished visitors, including the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II. Their research on the building included studying objects excavated during structural restoration, such as metalwork presumed brought in by merchants pulled from the foundations, which reinforced their views that Venice has always presided over global crossroads.
“Venice has always been an avant-garde city because it has always had travellers who brought culture from around the world. It has always been cosmopolitan,” Alessandro Gallo says over a breakfast of fresh strawberries, figs and concertos. He describes the new movement in luxury he is developing, which acknowledges the city’s past while keeping an eye firmly on the future, with the term ‘Postvenezia’. As he sought to create an immersive experience of Postvenezia, he turned to visual and experiential details, from art and food to amenities that cannot be found anywhere else.
From the moment guests arrive at the hotel, they are struck by the two features that visually define The Venice Venice Hotel: art and a rare 180 degree view of the Grand Canal. The low lit water entrance features a commissioned sculpture from Fabio Viale entitled Pietà Senza Cristo, which is an homage to Michelangelo’s Pieta in the Sistine Chapel. Sunk into a shallow pond, the sculpture, which sees Christ wrenched from Mary’s lap leaving a scarred carving of stone, introduces the hotel’s intention to bridge past and present.
This theme continues in The Bitter Club, the hotel bar that is Venice’s coolest after-dark destination (Armani hosted a party here during the 2022 film festival). Here, a titanium bar sits squarely under an antique-listed ceiling in turquoise with gold detailing. All four walls are cloaked in a tapestry by contemporary artist Francesco Simeti. The Italian-born, Brooklyn-based Simeti married his extensive research on Venetian tapestry through the centuries with floral images from his vast personal archive, inserting himself into the grand tradition of tapestry making in Venice. Up close, the surface is heavily textured in areas, a detail I loved as it made Simeti’s own hand feel present throughout.
For Alessandro Gallo, Postvenezia offers an opportunity to talk not only about then and now, but also about what makes Venice so unique. The hotel’s eatery and shop Venice M’Art is a fitting ode to his vision of Postvenezia, as it is filled with wares such as mirrors clad in the metalwork found during the property’s restoration, Murano glass objects whose finish is exclusive to the hotel, and a Golden Goose pop-up store, which can only be found in this one space in Venice. Along the walls, portraits of the restaurant’s purveyors commissioned from Alessandro Saccardo and rows of handmade ceramic vases filled with flora plucked from Venice’s canal and surrounding lagoon by Antonio Bonaldi subconsciously guide one from the shop to the restaurant.
Visitors are invited to dine canal-side under the ancient sotoportego, a classical Venetian architectural feature of high arches and stone walls. An all-day menu of cicheti, traditional Venitian small plates, give way to a pre-dinner aperitif menu featuring specialty cocktails and dishes to be shared as the sun sets over the Grand Canal. Plates of freshly baked croissants and bread, Italian olives and cheese crackers are swiftly replenished, encouraging one to linger.
The highlight of Venice M’Art’s dining are its candle-lit dinners – menus comprise picture cards of the dish, with the back of the card listing ingredients and recipes in Italian and English. Following an amuse bouche of sautéed lagoon seaweed, one can dive into specialty dishes paying homage to the seasons, such as the truffle, the undisputed stars of which were a steak smothered in tartufo nero, chased with a foie gras sando, and a creamy black truffle pasta. A generously heavy hand when it comes to shaving truffle fit in with the Italian hospitality that resonated throughout my stay.
On the first floor, where a living room lobby adds to the ambience of being a guest in a grand home, are a series of rooms including R14. Here, guests can gaze upon a fully restored fresco ceiling while also enjoying swoon-worthy Instagram views of the Grand Canal. Identified by a non-sequential numbering system, each room is a different design from the next, with individual art curations by well-known artists such as Bruce Nauman, Jannis Kounellis and Renato D’Agostin acting as Alessandro’s interior inspirations.
Recently, The Venice Venice Hotel launched their presidential suite R24, The Postvenetian Suite, which is the jewel in their crown. It features two sets of master bedrooms and bathrooms resplendent in Italian marble hand-selected by Alessandro Gallo, as well as a Turkish bath. Here, a major painting by famed Arte Povera master Gilberto Zorio faces a living room setup of modern Italian furniture bathed in natural light streaming in through floor-to-ceiling windows.
All rooms come with a host of amenities. These include Bang & Olufsen televisions, fully stocked minibars, and bath products from The Erose in specially designed aluminium cans. Jars filled with traditional Venetian biscuits are accompanied by handwritten notes to welcome guests. Marble, stone and brass bathroom fixtures, as well as leather headboards and sofas embossed with patterns from the original Golden Goose sneaker designs create a unison narrative between rooms unique to this hotel. The overall effect is incredibly personalised, an appreciated feature in a city heaving with tourist-focused spaces.
The hotel’s concierge team, aptly named The Dream Builders, are on hand to handle any details travellers to Venice could possibly need. In addition to a pre-arrival emails inquiring requirements to make my stay more comfortable, booking tickets for the Venice Biennale and museum tours, arranging water taxis for days out, and drawing maps to indicate the most convenient yet scenic routes to walk back along, The Dream Builders scored me a reservation at the famous Osteria Santa Marina, a perpetually fully booked Venetian restaurant that is a five-minute walk from the hotel’s central location.
The ideas of repurposing, reframing and re-contextualising heritage properties that are seen in The Venice Venice Hotel can be found throughout Venice today. Anish Kapoor has recently taken over a Venetian Palace, Palazzo Manfrin, to house his foundation. The Pinault Collection had a solo exhibition for contemporary painter Marlene Dumas in the fresco-filled Palazzo Grassi, where Dumas’ raw figurative paintings contrast with the refined classical figures around the palazzo. Touring these spaces and then returning to The Venice Venice Hotel created a seamless link that made me feel like the hotel’s founders and team are keen to introduce visitors to Venice’s soul, through their tailored services and features.
