Review: Hotel La Palma

Why book

Owners of Cannes Film Festival’s elite temple, Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, German ultra-luxe brand Oetker Collection is known as the arch dream-weaver of global jet-set glamour by way of Great Gatsby-era Hollywood. This breathily anticipated takeover of Capri’s Hotel La Palma is a statement of intent to return the island’s main town to its pre-cruise ship stop status simply by the brand’s rarefied presence.

Its light and refreshing contemporary design refers back to the classical era when Emperor Tiberius ruled Rome from here—after all, there’s nothing more exclusive than having the island to oneself. This purposefully elevated vision of Capri in cloud whites and heavenly sky blues is a reminder of the island’s true luxury: the view of the Bay of Naples as seen from the gods atop Mount Solaro. In reality, Hotel La Palma’s position is more down-to-earth and worldly. It sits as a decadent voyeur on Via Vittorio Emanuele—the Bond Street of Capri town—a short struggle through hoards of day-trippers in the “Piazzetta”.

Capri is a sort of glorious folly. Less an Italian island than a heady myth, this four-square-mile limestone dollop in the Tyrrhenian Sea has been a precipitous theatre to human nature since Roman times. Today’s it’s a stop on the Instagram age’s grand selfie tour. Luckily, the post-pandemic crowds before La Palma dissipate with the last ferry in time for a spritz before dinner at Gennaro’s, overseen by lauded Neapolitan chef Gennaro Esposito—the hotel’s main attraction and now Capri’s place to be seen.

Meanwhile, much clamor has arisen from Oetker’s relaunch of 70s beach club Da Gioia, a rival to Capri Palace’s Il Riccio in Anacapri (the only other island hotel to own one) which means—and here is the second big sell—an (almost) guaranteed sun-lounger on the space-challenged rock platforms and pebbled fringes of the island where the likes of Fontelina beach club are booked up one year in advance.

La Palma offers a ringside seat to all the folly here and in Capri town. It’s the spry alternative to the haughty grande dame Hotel Quisisana.

Set the scene

In the spirit of Capri, Oetker has forgone a high-walled retreat for a stage. The palms that flag La Palma’s front terrace, open to Via Vittorio Emanuele, look like art deco replicas made for the 1930s set. The stacked front terraces of the marzipan white building, tied up with ribbons of vintage bougainvillaea, are theatre boxes to all the action. This building has a colourful artistic heritage. Dubbed the “oldest hotel in Capri”, it became the island’s first guesthouse in 1822 after sociable notary Guiseppe Pagano opened his home—later known as Locanda Pagano—to artists and writers traveling on the Grand Tour: they painted murals on his walls, doors and wardrobes in payment.

Sadly none of the original art remains, but today, the vaulted ceilings in the reception are frescoed by contemporary painter Roberto Ruspoli: his haughty indigo Roman noses also an insider’s nod to the work of French avant-artiste Jean Cocteau. Meanwhile, Ruspoli’s hyper-realist close-ups of cracked Roman mosaics are among the few pieces of art on stark white walls that at first give the impression of the hotel being unfinished. But in Capri, the real jet set always dresses down. A curving plaster staircase is left entirely unaccessorized, as immaculately Mediterranean as a white linen shirt.

Maltese interior decorator Francis Sultana—formerly known for his private villa work—is the man behind the art deco meets neoclassical design. Mosaic terrazzo floors with a palm motif are nods to both Tiberius’s villas here and the Ethiopian palm that once stood like an icon outside the hotel, which was felled by a storm in the 1960s. The metallic aquamarine mosaics of reception and the Aqua bar by the small first-floor pool recall Capri’s neo-classical Villa Lysis and Villa San Michele. Sultana commissioned Italian brands and local artisans to make the hotel’s bespoke furniture. The rattan chairs at Gennaro’s are handmade by historic company Bonacina and hessian tapestries embroidered with bucolic scenes of Grand Tour-era Capri by Naples-based fashion designer Allegra Hicks. Everywhere white linen curtains waft like togas.

But the romance of the late 19th century cannot be re-captured in everything. After a taxi journey from Marina Grande port, the necessary sweaty 10-minute journey by foot with your luggage through a phalanx of selfie-ing day-trippers to the hotel is not exactly chic even if accompanied by a charming member of staff dressed like Gatsby. Unfortunately, cars are forbidden in Capri town.

Backstory

If the hotel feels a little incomplete, at the time of writing, it is. Still to open are a bijou basement spa and La Bianca roof terrace (the cherry on the marzipan cake which currently feels strangely absent), which will complete La Palma’s hat trick of restaurant spaces. It will also give La Palma guests a sea view—missing in all but the La Palma Suite—and offer a more lofty position and escape from the street-level walk-in of Gennaro’s bar. Still, the decision to open for the 2023 season was entirely reasonable on Oetker’s part. La Palma’s illustrious entrance on the Capri scene is one year late. It should have debuted in 2022. But a series of staffing and construction problems caused repeated delays. Renovations—which included a reduction of rooms from 80 to 50, including 18 suites—lasted two and a half years.

The Reuben Brothers group purchased the then four-star Hotel La Palma—owners of Venice’s Hotel Baglioni—in 2020, along with the island’s legendary nightclub La Taverna Anema e Core. The hotel remains in their ownership but is operated by Oetker Collection as their 11th hotel, another link in their bracelet of global gems, a glittering portfolio of highly-regarded jet-set temples including Le Bristol in Paris and Eden Rock in St Barth. The acquisition in the name of Capri’s 19th-century artists’ den makes perfect sense for a brand that launched during the Grand Tour with Cap D’Antibes writers retreat Villa Soleil, reincarnated as “Hotel du Cap.”

The rooms

The clean neoclassical meets art deco vibe—with a touch of 1920s interior decorator Syrie Maugham’s white-on-white—continues in 50 rooms and suites spread across three floors, all with dove-white private balconies or terraces perfumed by gardenia.

Inside, the reception’s mosaic floor becomes a plush art deco palm leaf motif rug, the only controlled injection of Capri’s shallows’ blues and pine greens. White lamps look inspired by Grecian amphorae; wardrobes are ridged like classical columns. Bathrooms are all art deco marble and brass with fittings custom made by the historic company Stella, founded in 1882. Bathroom products are by medieval Florentine apothecary Santa Maria Novella.

Expectations should be managed when it comes to views: the hotel, after all, is slap-bang in the middle of a space-challenged Capri town. At the front, terraces overlook Via Vittorio Emanuele. At the back, there is a more prosaic view of apartments and real Capri life. However, the Junior Suite Prestige Loggia on the first floor looks out onto the private pool area, which reaches the glamour of Hotel Du Cap, with white umbrellas and loungers piped with aquamarine-like irresistible cupcakes. Other suites are on the third floor, five of which can be interconnected. The La Palma Suite, where the street-level bougainvillaea ties up in a bow, might have the prettiest terrace in all Capri town with a wrap-around balcony fit for a Slim Aaron’s shoot with Jackie Kennedy.

The service

It’s funny what a difference a dress makes. La Palma’s staff—all buoyant, chatty and attentive—come clothed in baby blue-striped chambray linen as if ready for a day out on a yacht. Girls wear 1950s dresses tied with a simple rope belt. While boys are straight out of The Great Gatsby, in Panama hats and waistcoats. The retro style of affectation is charming. They all seem genuinely excited after the long road to opening and will enthusiastically arrange transfers, guides, beach loungers at Da Gioia and boat trips—a godsend on an island where any experience of La Dolce Vita is seriously marred by ludicrously priced taxis, queues and waiting lists.

The food and drink

Gennaro Esposito, famed for his two-Michelin-starred Torre del Saracino in Vico Equense near Sorrento, is the ace up La Palma’s airy linen sleeve. He brings to La Palma his pastry master Carmine di Donna, who oversees the hotel’s excellent patisserie, his precious contacts with small local Campania producers and, thankfully, his unfussy dishes based on Neapolitan recipes as clean as the arum lilies that dot tables.

His fine dining restaurant begins on Gennaro’s front terrace and extends to an elegant art deco interior dining room of burnished mirrors and Murano chandeliers sharpened with the yellow of Capri’s broom flowers and lime of its sea pine needles. Light and refreshing dishes turned out by executive chef Giovanni Bavuso brilliantly capture the Caprese mood: from zucchini tartare with almond mayonnaise to cavatelli alla Nerano (the dish invented by Amalfi coast legend “Maria Grazia” in the fifties with fried zucchini and Provolone cheese, made near Vesuvius). There is also a serious wine cellar with 300 labels, including local volcanic wines Greco di Tufo and Biancolella from Ischia. For some, the hefty Bose speakers pumping out music will be a vibe killer.

Lunches can be taken at Da Gioia’s tiny stretch of smooth pebble beach (the rocky Amalfi’s coast version of white sand) at Marina Piccola, with space enough for 42 sun loungers at low tide and a private rentable section for 6-8 more. But in Capri, size isn’t everything: coveted proximity to the shallows is. The cabana-style restaurant—all white rattan, sea greens and artisanal ceramics—serves simple classics such as scorpion fish all’ acqua pazza and wave-fresh John Dory before the aquamarine and indigo tie-dye of the bay.

For families

Children are gifted an age-appropriate amenity kit with the likes of a bucket sunhat, teddy, daypack, and personalised Indian tent. There are children’s TV channels in the room, and five suites are interconnecting.

Eco-effort

Oetker Collection joined the Sustainable Hospitality Alliance at the beginning of 2023. La Palma employs low-energy lighting and air conditioning and is committed to paper reduction using QR codes in the room instead. Santa Maria Novella toiletries are refillable. Hotel gifts are made from regenerated leather.

Accessibility for those with mobility impairments

The hotel entrance is wheelchair friendly, lifts are too, and Da Gioia beach club can be reached by boat.

Anything else to mention

The hotel’s high-tech 24-hour gym is already open, and the spa will house three treatment rooms, a salt room, a Turkish bath, a sauna and a “sensory” shower and use organic Tata Harper products. In high season, there is a minimum stay of five nights and three nights in low season.