Splendido Mare, A Belmond Hotel, Portofino

Where the Piazzetta Becomes the Setting

There are hotels that overlook a famous square, and then there are hotels that are, functionally, part of it. Splendido Mare, a Belmond Hotel on Via Roma 2, belongs to the second category. Its dining terrace, bar, and ground-floor energy bleed directly into Portofino's Piazzetta — the small, intensely photographed square where the harbour light bounces off pastel facades and the evening passeggiata turns into something closer to theatre. Arriving here is not a quiet, lobby-first experience. The village is the lobby.

That positioning matters more than any design detail, because it sets the operating logic of the whole property. Splendido Mare functions as a social anchor in a village that has perhaps thirty genuine accommodation options and a dining scene compressed into a few hundred metres. At this scale, being on the Piazzetta rather than a few streets back is a meaningful distinction. The property has carried that advantage since its origins as a guesthouse serving fishermen and travellers, and through the 1950s, when Humphrey Bogart, Ava Gardner, and their contemporaries made Portofino a byword for a particular kind of effortless coastal glamour.

The DaV Mare Dining Programme

Italian coastal hotel dining splits broadly into two models: in-house kitchen teams building a standalone restaurant identity, and partnerships that import an established culinary name to anchor the property's food credentials. Splendido Mare takes the second approach. DaV Mare, the hotel's destination restaurant, operates in partnership with the Cerea family, whose Da Vittorio in Brusaporto, Bergamo, holds three Michelin stars and sits among the more decorated family-run restaurant operations in Italy. That lineage frames the DaV Mare proposition clearly: this is not a hotel restaurant built around convenience, but one positioned as a dining destination in its own right, with the Piazzetta as its terrace and Ligurian seafood as its editorial through-line.

Ligurian cuisine is a specific and sometimes underestimated culinary register. The coastline produces a narrow, intensely aromatic pantry: Taggiasca olives, local anchovies, pesto in the form that predates the international dilutions, and seafood that travels from the boats to the kitchen within hours. At DaV Mare, that regional foundation intersects with the Cerea family's technical precision, a combination that places the restaurant in the tier of serious resort dining rather than the broader category of hotel food you eat because leaving feels complicated. For visitors spending time in our full Portofino restaurants guide, DaV Mare represents one of the Piazzetta's most credentialed tables.

The DaV Mare Bar operates on a separate register, with an ingredient-led cocktail programme drawing on local botanicals, citrus, and herbs. Portofino's bar culture has historically been about aperitivo rather than ambitious mixology, and a bar that positions itself around local sourcing and innovation sits slightly apart from the broader village offering. Nearby, the hotel notes Gelateria San Giorgio — and specifically its paciugo, a Ligurian sundae format with regional roots , as part of the broader culinary picture around the property.

Fourteen Rooms and the Logic of Small-Scale Luxury

Italian coastal luxury has moved in two directions over the past decade: large-footprint properties adding amenity layers to justify headline rates, and small-inventory hotels where limited keys and specific design thinking do the work. At fourteen rooms and suites, Splendido Mare sits firmly in the second group. The property was comprehensively reimagined in 2021, a renovation that reoriented the interiors around a nautical palette without tipping into the visual clichés that word sometimes implies. Murano glass lamps, Rubelli fabrics, and vintage Gio Ponti furniture form a material language that has genuine regional and historical grounding rather than generic Mediterranean mood-boarding.

Rooms are accessed along corridors that the property describes as winding , a detail that, in a building this size, translates to something close to intimate discovery rather than the corridor-hotel experience of larger properties. Harbour views feature across the inventory, though the degree of exposure will vary by room category. The Ava Gardner Suite occupies the leading of the building, with a full-length terrace suited to private entertaining , a suite named for a guest who actually stayed here, which gives it a different register from the usual aspirational naming conventions.

For guests who require a larger pool and wellness footprint, a shuttle connects Splendido Mare to its sister property, Splendido, a Belmond Hotel, which sits above the village with a panoramic saltwater pool, tennis court, and a full wellness centre. This arrangement works in practice as a shared amenity model: the Mare property trades on its Piazzetta position and intimacy, while the hillside Splendido absorbs the demand for larger-scale resort infrastructure. Among Portofino's small peer set, which includes Eight Hotel Portofino, this dual-property structure gives Belmond a broader range of access points than any single competitor.

What the Property Offers Beyond the Room

Complimentary boat tours aboard a traditional gozzo place Splendido Mare in the category of Italian coastal hotels that build a water-access programme rather than treating the sea as backdrop. The gozzo is a working wooden fishing boat specific to Ligurian boatbuilding traditions, and its use here signals a design choice toward regional authenticity over the generic luxury tender. Private lounger access at Bagni Fiore beach provides a beach club anchor without the property needing to own the full infrastructure.

The curated activity programme extends to ecofarm picnics, sunset kayaking, and guided walks into the Cinque Terre , a range that covers the spectrum from passive to physically engaged, and from village-level to regional. The Cinque Terre connection in particular positions the property as a base for the broader Ligurian coastline rather than a purely Portofino-contained experience.

The hotel is open through January 6th, 2026, which extends availability beyond the typical September close that compresses the Italian Riviera season for most comparable properties. That extended window matters for guests who find the peak summer weeks , when Portofino operates under significant visitor pressure , less appealing than the quieter shoulder and early-winter period.

Portofino and Its Peer Set Across Italy

Portofino operates in a specific register of Italian travel: a village small enough to walk entirely in fifteen minutes, with accommodation inventory so limited that the properties present carry outsized weight. Compared with the broader Italian coastal luxury circuit, which runs from the Amalfi Coast properties like Borgo Santandrea and Il San Pietro di Positano to island options like JK Place Capri, Portofino sits in a different key: less dramatic topography, more concentrated social energy, and a visitor profile that has historically skewed toward the stylish rather than the adventurous.

For travellers building a wider Italy itinerary, Splendido Mare connects logically with city-based properties such as Portrait Milano for a Milanese approach to the same design-and-dining intelligence, or with Tuscan countryside anchors like Rosewood Castiglion Del Bosco and Borgo San Felice Resort for a contrast between coast and interior. Those planning lake itineraries might look toward EALA My Lakeside Dream or the celebrated Passalacqua on Lake Como. Further afield, Aman Venice and Four Seasons Hotel Firenze represent the larger-footprint urban end of the Italian luxury tier, while rural alternatives like Castello di Reschio, Casa Maria Luigia, and Corte della Maestà serve a more immersive, estate-based model of Italian hospitality. For those considering Puglia and the south, Borgo Egnazia and Il Pellicano occupy comparable prestige positions in their respective settings. The Rome option, Bulgari Hotel Roma, and northern mountain properties like Castel Fragsburg and Castelfalfi complete the picture of a country where premium hospitality has genuine geographic and stylistic range.

Planning a Stay

Splendido Mare is at Via Roma 2, Portofino, with the property sitting directly on the Piazzetta. The hotel is open through January 6th, 2026. Guests access sister-property facilities at Splendido by shuttle. DaV Mare restaurant and DaV Mare Bar are the on-site dining anchors, with beach access at Bagni Fiore and boat tours available. Given the fourteen-room inventory, advance booking is the operating assumption for peak season and for the shoulder weeks either side of it. Portofino itself is accessible by boat from Santa Margherita Ligure and Rapallo, or by car to the village perimeter followed by a short walk , private water transfers are the preferred arrival mode for many guests, and the harbour setting makes that choice feel entirely coherent.