This New Book I Contributed to Explores Some of the World’s Best Hotels—Including Many in Italy—Through the Lens of Culture

Issue #144

Today I’m excited to share with you a peek inside Culture: The Leading Hotels of the World, a new book published by Phaidon and Monacelli, which I was honored to contribute to. Full of evocative photography and stories about 80+ members of the Leading Hotels of the World, this beautiful coffee table book is the second in a series of five books celebrating the illustrious association that unites the best hotels in the world.

I’ve been a fan of Leading Hotels for years and have been lucky enough to stay at more than 50 of their hotels around the world. Formed in 1928 by hoteliers for hoteliers, the association counts more than 400 hotels and resorts in 80 countries as members—and of those a whopping 83 are in Italy. What I love about Leading Hotels is that it’s made up of mostly independent and family-run hotels run by hoteliers who are really invested in making the guest experience the best it can be.

Each book in the series is centered around a theme, which guides the selection of hotels featured in it. The first book, Design, included icons like the Okura Tokyo and J.K. Place Rome. This new book, Culture, hinges on the idea that the hotels featured in its pages immerse us in the culture of their destination.

As the venerated essayist Pico Iyer writes in the foreword, “‘Culture’ is as hard to define as ‘beauty’ or ‘taste,’ but we know it when we see it… it is that hidden treasure that goes beyond simply seeing the sights and gives us a new pair of eyes.”

I wrote about six hotels—all in Italy—that are featured in this book: Anantara Palazzo Naiadi in Rome, Grand Hotel Continental Siena - Starhotels Collezione, Grand Hotel Excelsior Vittoria in Sorrento, Masseria Donna Menga in Puglia, Villa La Massa in Florence, and Violino d’Oro in Venice, which was selected by the editors as one of the larger features in the book and got an eight-page spread.

Perhaps you’ve been to or at least heard of them. If not, I would recommend staying in or at least stopping by them for a drink or a meal the next time you’re visiting the places where they’re located.

Last week, I joined some of Leading Hotels of the World’s leadership team, some of the hoteliers whose hotels were featured in the book, and the Editor in Chief of The Slowdown, which produced the book in conjunction with Monacelli, at the Culture Luxury Summit in Portugal. In a series of panel discussions, we talked not only about the book but also about what culture means in the context of luxury hotels and how the hoteliers connect their guests with the local culture.

It’s a topic too broad to go into in depth here, but I came away feeling inspired by the way that hotels and the people behind them can act as a bridge connecting us to a place we’re visiting. Because after all, isn’t that what travel is all about?

Further Reading

• You can learn more about the book and order a copy here. (This isn’t an affiliate link. I don’t get any kind of commission or royalties if you buy the book. I’m just proud to have worked on it.)

• For my series of interviews with entrepreneurs and creatives doing cool things in Italy, I have interviewed Guido Fiorentino, the fifth generation owner of the Grand Hotel Excelsior Vittoria, and Sara Maestrelli, owner of Violino d’Oro and Creative Director of Collezione Em.

• INEO, the fine dining restaurant inside Anantara Palazzo Naiadi, is included in my very subjective list of the most romantic restaurants in Rome.