Meet Betty Soldi & Matteo Perduca, the Creative Couple Behind Florence’s Best B&Bs
Issue #10
If you ask me, the best places to stay in Florence aren’t necessarily the most expensive, but rather the places with soul. And no couple represents the soul of Florence better than Betty Soldi and Matteo Perduca. They are the ultimate Renaissance man and woman behind SoprArno Suites, Oltrarno Splendid, and AdAstra as well as the restaurant Regina Bistecca. They are pioneers in the creative Renaissance of the Oltrarno neighborhood across the Arno River from Florence’s centro storico. So I’m thrilled that they were willing to speak with me as part of a series of interviews with creatives and entrepreneurs doing cool things in Italy.
Thank you both so much for finding the time to chat with me. I first became aware of your incredible work when I fact checked an article for Travel + Leisure about the creative Renaissance of the Oltrarno neighborhood in Florence, which must have been around 2015 or so, and I was really thrilled to meet you, Betty, and to stay at Oltrarno Splendid. So for my readers who may or may not know, you guys run not one, not two, but three B&Bs in Florence.
Betty: Not three, but almost four!
Almost four, amazing! So tell me everything. Which was the first one? And how did it all begin?
Matteo: The first one was SoprArno Suites and it began in 2015, as you were saying. It was right about where we opened a shop in 2012. We used to sell pieces of furniture that I sourced in London, because she lived in London for a long time, and I met some friends who owned the Vitruvius Studio in London, which sells reclaimed furniture. Adam, the guy who used to run the place, took me around the big markets outside London, where you can find hundreds of dealers selling interesting pieces. So I used to buy those pieces and bring them here. Adam used to buy Italian stuff and bring it back to London. So we started selling these pieces of furniture and we added some other pieces of Betty’s design, like cups, plates, tea towels...
Betty: Objects that had my calligraphy, my design.
Matteo: And one day a friend of mine who’s an architect popped into the shop and said “There’s a big flat right on Via Maggio in this building right above the shop and I would like to set up a bed & breakfast here.” It was 2015, so even if it was only seven years ago, you have to imagine that it was ages in terms of how tourism has changed in Florence. He explained to me, “It’s probably going to be a good business in the future because a lot of people are planning to come to Florence,” because he already owned a small bed & breakfast in the hills.
So I said, “Well, I’ve never been in this business, even if my family has run a campsite for 50 years, but it’s completely different—it’s on the coast, you have the seaside, you stay there for three weeks—so a bed & breakfast was out of my comfort zone. He insisted, and I said, “Okay, but you have to give me carte blanche in terms of how to do it, materials and atmosphere and mood and everything.” He said, “I’m an architect, so I'll draw the spaces and you fill them with whatever you want.”
Betty: So we drew on our experiences of our own travel and your amazing sense of art and curiosity for things.
Matteo: Also I have to admit, the major inspiration was Soho House. So we took this place that in the beginning was 11 rooms and we arranged them one different from the other and we opened in 2015 when there was the international expo in Milan. We were fully booked from the beginning, good reviews, we had a lot of press and we were doing very well.
Betty: The interesting thing then was we sort of unwittingly filled a gap because Florence at that time had either very dusty low-end kind of hotels or very luxurious and expensive. There weren’t that many that were targeted in the middle and were also eclectic. Because everything was either very traditional and dusty and Michelangelo and quite provincial for Florence, or the big hitters—the Ferragamos and the Four Seasons and all the others. So nothing was actually available in Florence that was a bit quirkier.
Matteo is brilliant at taking inspiration from every room. Every room had a fresco, and he would take inspiration from it and create a design around it. So every time you come into one of our hotels, if you come into a different room, it feels like you're in a different place every time. It’s unexpected.
That’s one of the things I really appreciate about them. As you know, I stayed at Oltrarno Splendid, but I also got a peek at Ad Astra on a recent trip and they’re just so lovely because they feel very personal. I’m curious to know how you put them together, especially with all the pieces of vintage furniture and decor. Are those pieces you bought in London?
Matteo: Some of them, especially in SoprArno, but then considering that it was a job in a job, bringing all the stuff from London to Florence, it’s not viable anymore. So now I’m an expert about art dealers or furniture dealers, antiques, flea markets, and everything that takes place in Florence and around. There’s a big fair in Arezzo that took place the first weekend of the month. And then there are three different markets that took place in different places in Florence. There’s another one in Lucca. And I know where to buy a nice chair or a nice armchair, so whenever I find something, I buy it and I put it aside.
It’s a joy for me even if it’s quite stressful because if I find a chair, I have to think about 26 chairs. And it’s easy to find, two, three, four, but then I also have to keep them. I need a warehouse, but this is part of the fun of doing this. Hospitality is something you have to do with a smile on your face, from the moment you buy a piece at a flea market to the moment you greet someone entering the door of your hotel.
Betty: And everything in between, from the fabric to the cushions...
Matteo: I’m quite an introverted guy, but I can also be extroverted, so I know the upholsterer, I know the one who makes the frames, I know the carpenter, I know the one who helps me with the iron and the other one with the glass. I know all the artisans who are around Oltrarno, which still has the soul of old Florence. So it's very joyful to do this. You go and have breakfast with the carpenter and you have lunch with the one who sold you the lights. We are all friends.
Betty: I think there's a transference of energy with that. That’s why it feels so personal. Because it’s not a trained architect and the shoulds—how you should do things. Matteo just gets inspired and makes it up. So many of your references come from your own personal discoveries or a sense of nostalgia, of becoming a kid again.
You touched upon the neighborhood a little bit, which I would love to talk about because it’s such a lovely part of Florence that can be so easy to miss, especially for travelers on their first trip who want to visit the main sights and see the Duomo and the Uffizi and all of that, but having spent more time in Florence and more time in the Oltrarno neighborhood, I was just so charmed by it and how it’s literally a 10 or 15 minute walk across the bridge, but it feels like a completely different atmosphere.
Matteo: I used to live on the outskirts of Florence, but the day I decided to buy a house on my own, I looked at this place and I knew that I wanted to stay here, so I bought a house on Piazza Tasso, where Alla Vecchia Bettola is. And then I fell in love with this place because in five steps you can reach the bar where you can chat with everyone from kids to old people to workers. So when we decided to move away because the house was too small for us, I suggested to her to stay in this quarter because it’s a very nice place. And we’re lucky enough that when we open the windows of our bedroom, we see the Giardini di Boboli.
Betty: But also because Florence can be really hard if you live in the center and you’re constantly surrounded by tourists. It wasn’t to avoid the tourists, it was because this neighborhood is really eclectic and interesting.
Matteo: I cannot be the one who wants to avoid tourists.
Betty: No, we love tourists! But it is still incredible how few do that 10 or 15 minute walk to cross the bridge because we get a whole lot less traffic.
Matteo: Well, the main problem of the visitor is that they spend 2.4 nights here. That means that you have to stay on the other side of the river because you want to visit the Uffizi Gallery, go to Galleria dell’Accademia, stroll in Ponte Vecchio and then you don't have a lot of time to cross the river and lose yourself around here.
Betty: It requires too much of yourself, which is kind of the tourist we like.
So the ones who do make it over to the Oltrarno are a special kind of tourist, aren’t they?
Matteo: Actually they are more travelers than tourists. It’s a completely different target. They have different interests, it’s probably not their first time in Florence, or they follow some kind of guide and are more into the idea of living Florence in a different way. Florence is worth visiting once a year for five years and then for three nights every time, so you can take it slowly.
Betty: And at different times of year. It’s so different in winter from how it’s overrun in summer. We’ve been saying it for years, the low season is such a nice time of year to come.
Matteo: February, March is probably the best time of year to visit Florence. And November now has been a long high season. Everywhere has been very busy.
I’ve been to Florence at least four or five times over the years and I find there’s always so much to discover, so many hidden gems that you have to go back to explore. One of them, for example, which I discovered when I stayed at Oltrarno Splendid, is your wonderful restaurant, Regina Bistecca. When did you guys open that and how did that project come about?
Matteo: We opened in 2018 because of a friend of mine who used to run the fourth generation of book dealers—they started in 1875 selling normal books, and then they became an art gallery, and then they became an antiques shop. Being so close to the Duomo doesn’t mean anything to them, so my friend said, “I have to find another place outside the center where it’s easier to park, so what can I do in this place?” And I said, “Well, there’s not so many things you can do so close to the Duomo. You’re gonna sell leather items or you’re gonna set up a restaurant. So if you want, I can design a project for this place and I can show you and if you’re happy about it, I can rent it out.”
So I asked a friend of mine who owns Galateo, a catering company—a genius in his business—“Why don’t you open a restaurant with me in this place?” And he said, “No, because you cannot even imagine how many people this year asked me why don’t you open something with me.” And I said, “Okay, okay, Simone, I understand, but please come and see the place and then you decide because otherwise one day when you’ll come and see the place, you’ll say I should have insisted.”
So I brought him there, and if you have been there, you know what I’m talking about. At that point it was still a bookshop and all the rooms were filled with antique books and it was fantastic, and he said, “Okay, let’s do it.” And the idea was to create a sort of Florentine international steakhouse because in Florence we have this dish, bistecca alla fiorentina and we wanted to celebrate it in the best possible way, so we tried to find the best way to cook it, the best way to serve it, the best way to present it. And we tried to create a place that was a little more like a French brasserie where you sit in this beautiful room where you enjoy yourself, you see the people around you, you listen to the music...
Betty: You eye up the dessert trolley...
Matteo: Simple but beautiful food.
The space is incredible. You feel it as soon as you walk in, with those arches and the incredible architecture and the way you’ve designed the restaurant to feel so intimate. Even if it has those soaring ceilings, it feels very warm and welcoming.
Betty: It was probably an open courtyard.
Matteo: It definitely was. There were bookshelves where now there are bottles of wine. We tried to keep it as much as possible the way it was because it was so beautiful. And it worked. You step in and you feel like you’re in a place that has been there for a long time and it is true.
And of course aside from the B&Bs and the restaurant, you both do other things as well. Betty, I know you have a design studio and I was lucky enough to see it. Matteo, what about you? I seem to remember from that T+L article that you’re a lawyer, is that correct?
Matteo: Yeah, now only for myself with all the problems of the last two years. I’m joking. I’m not practicing anymore.
More focused on creative projects now?
Matteo: Yeah, more fun, absolutely. Because being a lawyer it’s very difficult to see what you’re doing from one day to another because you go to court and it takes years, it’s very frustrating. But doing this kind of thing, I have to buy a piece, I know where to find it, I collect it, so from the morning to the evening I see what I’ve done.
Betty, I would love to talk about your creative projects as well because I will be forever grateful to you for working your calligraphic magic on my wedding invitations, but I know that you often collaborate with luxury brands like Chanel and Belmond Hotels and you have a whole calligraphy and design practice. Can you tell me more about that?
Betty: The interesting thing for me—I moved back from London 12 years ago to have our daughter Alma—so what I discovered was the great thing in London was to have some Italianicity about me, with all those personal touches and the passion, which the English always loved. I thought I would find that in the design agencies here, but the whole Italian design world is quite closed off, it’s not at all experimental or open-minded as it is in the United States or in London, and it’s sort of left to Milan. For me innovation and design means honoring the past and where things come from and continuing to make them relevant. It doesn’t mean I need to wipe something out and make it very modern and contemporary, which they like to do in hotels and spaces. They like to gut them and make it modern because there’s too much old stuff in Italy.
I learned calligraphy at a design college that was based in the Bauhaus, so incredibly modern Swiss typography. There was a reverence for the past, so you learned how to remove things to make them modern, but you had to understand where they come from. So that’s why I’ve always done multiple things, it’s never been one thing.
That's a very Italian thing. You study to be something. Matteo studied to be a lawyer, that's what he should be then. Renaissance thinking came around to say we are many things in many forms. When I did calligraphy, I did it as part of a design course, so it was about reasoning and thinking and content, and that’s what I still do now. When I came back here, it was like, “Oh you’re a calligrapher, you do wedding invitations.” and I was like, “Fantastic, yes, but not only.” That's not my limitation, that's people’s understanding of what you can do with it. Which is what I've been looking at: why does calligraphy work? Why does something that’s hand-written have more value than something that’s typed or a font? So there's that intervention.
With our design studio, you know it’s us, it’s our thinking, it’s our research, it’s putting things together, it’s our hands on things, it’s people we know. The same way that Matteo was saying I know the guy who makes the glass or the ceramic guy, I try to use that in another way. So that’s been an interesting thing for me. If I’m here, I can bring an international look at things, but I can use the wonderful resources that are available to me locally.
I also wanted to ask, you come from a rather important pyrotechnic family, right? Do they still make fireworks for major holidays like New Year’s Eve and whatnot?
Betty: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, and they do the scoppio del carro, which is this amazing cart that explodes in front of the Duomo in Florence every Easter Sunday. 1869 is the date when they started hand making them. And they have the exclusive for the Four Seasons, all the villas, they do lots of really big shows as well.
Wow, what are holiday gatherings like with your family?
Betty: Well, we did a shoot for Elle Decor and we did these amazing fireworks in their garden, where they often try things out. They have to try new colors out, new shapes. They’re just in the Val d’Arno nearby. Again, maybe the artisanal side of me wants to make sure that things like that don’t die out. But more and more people are understanding the beauty of these things and especially for them, they set them to music.
I actually designed a book for our 150th a few years ago. All my cousins, uncles—they’re all males for many generations— continue and the younger generations are now starting. And I said, “What makes you do it? It’s such hard work, you work all day to make them and then you’re up late, it’s very heavy work, it’s dangerous work.” And they’re like, “Well, it’s that thing during the show when you hear gasps of wonder and that is the biggest satisfaction there is that you can produce magic in the sky.”
I want to wrap up because I’m taking a lot of your time, but you sort of alluded to an upcoming project and I was wondering if you would give me a little preview of that?
Matteo: We’re crossing the river. A friend of mine during the pandemic phoned me and said, “Are you still interested in doing a hotel because a friend of mine has a nice place that I want to show you.” So she brought me to Via Tornabuoni number 7, which is where we’re now working on the site. It was 1,200 square meters where we can host 24 different rooms, so we couldn’t say no.
We were lucky to get enough money to start the project and now we’re working, even if the site is going very slowly. We’re hoping to open in April, May. In the beginning it was February, now it’s already April, at some point it’s going to be June and September. Now I’m bidding on many items around Florence at these auction houses. It’s going to be the biggest hotel.
Before I let you go, can you just share a couple of your favorite places to eat in Florence?
Matteo: Sostanza Il Troia is probably the most authentic experience you can have even if it’s filled with tourists, but Florence without tourists cannot survive. It’s a very small trattoria that probably has 24 seats. So you go there, you see the white tiles, you see the kitchen. The waiters are the owners as well, so you can have a chat. You can order your pollo al burro or a tortino ai carciofi and then you can end with fragoline di bosco. That is what you need to have there. Now it’s interesting to try some hidden places for aperitivo. Palazzo Guadagni in Piazza Santo Spirito, you can have your aperitivo on the altana.
Betty: We have our friends who've opened Tiratissima.
Matteo: Yes, my partner in the restaurant. It’s not in the center of Florence, so it’s where the travelers usually don’t go.
Betty: They're very long pizzas, that's why it’s called Tiratissima.
Matteo: We have Pasticceria Gualtieri that’s outside the Porta Romana, where they make very nice pasticcini, torta.
Betty: A lot of local things. If you live here, then you try to find things that give you joy.
Thank you so much. I’m sure I’ll be back in Florence again soon and I hope to see you.
Matteo: We’ll give you a helmet and we’ll go to the site so you can give us a hand!
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Further Reading
Betty shared more of her favorite places in Oltrarno with me in this article for TripAdvisor.
Oltrarno Splendid and AdAstra were among my picks of the best hotels in Florence in this list for TripSavvy.
I included Regina Bistecca and some more Oltrarno tips in this Florence guide for Hotels Above Par.
I also wrote this Design Lover’s Guide to Florence for Architectural Digest, which has more tips for design-minded travelers.