The Rome Cavalieri hotel turns 60: of beauty (and haute cuisine)

Welcome to vacation, because the Rome Cavalieri, A Waldorf Astoria Hotelis not a simple «hotel in Rome», it is an extra-luxury resort in the greenery of Monte Mario, with swimming pools and whirlpools, tennis courts and spas, plants, flowers, elegance. We are in Rome, yes, but with the same mood that we could have in some luxurious hotel around the world. Here we find one attendance of various internationalities (Italians included), several celebritiesand even some Romans, who are in the pool to enjoy the wonder of a park in the city, immersed in six hectares of pristine greenery, as if it were in the tropics.

There is no more thrilling feeling than being on the terrace of the Pergola, the 3 Michelin star restaurant headed by Heinz Beck, with a glass in hand gazing at the city stretched out long and endless before your eyes, with the dome of St. your right almost to touch, and then all the monuments of the Eternal City in a parade, one step away, but to look at from afar, as if they were there for you.

60 years of history

The hotel was opened in 1963 so exactly sixty years ago from none other than Conrad Hilton, in a six-hectare park on Monte Mario, when there was no hotel like this in the city. It was the international hotel par excellence, the one that responded to the needs of the new emerging tourism. And things haven’t changed. Unique in its kind, for the position, the panorama, for the silence and the greenery of the park, for the architecture example of modular architecture of the 60s, for the interior design by Franco Albini, inspired by linearity and minimalism. Luxury, elegance, together with a feeling of serenity that have made it the place of famous “Roman holidays”. Meanwhile the common areas and the rooms over the years they have filled up with a prestigious collection of works of art. From the triptych of Tiepolo in the lobby a Andy Warhol in the Penthouse where the sofas are those designed by Karl Lagerfeld for his Paris home and purchased at a Sotheby’s auction in Monte Carlo, as well as in the super-luxury Planetarium suitewith a terrace of unimaginable beauty.

The suite Napoleon is entirely dedicated to the French emperor, with original Empire furniture, period prints, a bust of Napoleon, paintings by Jean-Louis Faure and a stylish bathtub in the bathroom. A room where they slept Penelope Cruz, John Travolta, Morgan Freeman, Celine Dion, Henry Kissinger. To name a few. One of the most popular, however, remains the new one Petronius Suite246 m2, with the dining room for 12 people decorated with two seventeenth-century paintings of Santa Caterina and Santa Cecilia.

Heinz Beck and the birthday dinner

Difficult to list in one article all the awards of chef Heinz Beck since 1994 at the helm of the hotel restaurant, The Pergola. When you read them in line, you draw certain certainties from technical precision to respect for the product. But if the kitchen is the reflection of man, Heinz Beck must be known to understand that the perfection of his dishes also comes from feeling, and from kindness. The first act of the hotel’s 60th anniversary celebration was in his hands, a gala dinner for very few guests at a table of unique elegancewith a six-course, 10-course menu created with two other three-Michelin-starred chefs: the Dutch Jacob Jan Boerma of The White Room restaurant and the Italian (but at work at the Lasarte restaurant in Barcelona) Paul Casagrande. A dinner of the highest level and at the same time with a relaxed atmosphere, which was attended by 63 selected guests welcomed by the Managing Director Alessandro Cabella, including Alessandro Roja, Luca Guadagnino, Cinzia TH Torrini, Sergio Castellitto with Margaret Mazzantini, Pietro and Maria Castellitto, Bruno Vespa, Enrico Brignano and his wife Flora Canto, Alessandro Onorato – Councilor for Major Events, Sport, Tourism and Fashion, Ivana Jelinic – CEO of Enit, Marina Lalli – President of Federturismo Confindustria. Some of the unforgettable dishes? THE Tortellini stuffed with Genoese sauce with artichokes and black truffle by Heinz Beck, theWarm salad of red prawns and seafood, rutabaga, crunchy sweetbreads and citrus fruits by Paolo Casagrande, lo Tandoori scampi, carrots in different textures, kaffir, passion ginger and marinated physalis by Jacob Jan Boerma. And the Milk, bread and chocolate by Heinz Beck, ending with love.