Hassler Roma

A family-owned five-star hotel at the top of Rome's Spanish Steps since 1893, with 82 rooms and suites, the Michelin-starred Imàgo and a seventh-floor terrace.

Hassler Roma has stood at the top of the Spanish Steps, on Piazza Trinità dei Monti, since 1893. It is independent and family-owned, and six generations of the Wirth family have run it rather than a hotel group.

It began with Albert Hassler, a Swiss hotelier who bought three buildings on the piazza in 1892 and opened them as Hotel Hassler a year later. In 1939 Oscar Wirth started a remodel that needed near full demolition and reconstruction. Allied forces requisitioned the hotel in 1944 for the Supreme Command of the Air Forces, and it reopened to the public in 1947.

The Hassler Penthouse takes the whole eighth floor, with two panoramic terraces and a grand piano. The San Pietro Presidential Suite has a covered sixth-floor terrace facing the dome of St Peter’s, and the Trinità dei Monti Presidential Suite has a private terrace so close to the church that you could almost reach out and touch it. In all there are 82 rooms and suites: 61 rooms and 21 suites. Il Palazzetto, a 19th-century residence nearby, adds four boutique rooms, three of them looking over Piazza di Spagna.

Imàgo is the Michelin-starred restaurant, where chef Andrea Antonini cooks beside a wine list of more than 1,500 labels. Executive chef Marcello Romano serves contemporary Roman cooking at Salone Eva and the Palm Court, whose garden opens in summer. Drinks are at Carmen’s Bar, named for Carmen Wirth, or up on the 7th Floor Terrace, and Il Palazzetto’s wine bar faces the sunset over the Steps.

Those are the steps from Roman Holiday. There are 135 of them, opening onto Piazza di Spagna, where Via Condotti begins.