Bellevue Syrene 1820 – two centuries above a Roman villa

On Piazza della Vittoria, where Sorrento's cliffs fall into the Gulf of Naples, Bellevue Syrene 1820 occupies ground that was prized property long before the town became a resort. Records place its opening as a hotel in 1820, in a building first designed in 1750 as a private residence raised over the remains of a Roman villa. Tufa cisterns and nymphaea from that villa still survive inside the house, and local legend holds that the emperor Augustus exiled his turbulent nephew Agrippa Postumus here in 6 AD, who fell in love with the place and made it his chosen home. It is a member of Relais & Châteaux, the only one on this stretch of coast, and the MICHELIN Guide awarded it Two MICHELIN Keys in 2024. Fifty rooms and suites, a cliffside restaurant terrace now shared with a two-Michelin-starred chef, a wine cellar inside a Roman grotto and a private beach reached by lift make a stay here closer to moving into a layered, lived-in museum than checking into a hotel.

01The house

Legend aside, the documented history begins in the eighteenth century. The Counts of Mastrobuono built a holiday residence on the Roman ruins in 1750, and it was converted into a hotel in 1820, during the years when the Grand Tour was drawing wealthy Europeans south to study art and antiquity. Beneath the public rooms, tuff cisterns carved to store rainwater and small nymphaea dedicated to the water deities survive, worked into cellars that now double as wine stores and bathing grottoes.

At the turn of the twentieth century the English collector William Waldorf Astor commissioned the Villa Pompeiana, which today houses two function rooms and a colonnaded terrace used for weddings, galas and banquets. Inside it the hotel built a faithful reproduction of Pompeii's Casa dei Vetti, a setting now used for guests' breakfasts as much as for parties.

The hotel has been run by the same family since a change of ownership roughly thirty years ago that let it focus fully on its hospitality potential and take a leading place among the coast's luxury addresses; five generations of the Russo-Attanasio family now oversee it. Guests over two centuries have included Louis II of Bavaria, Empress Eugénie of France, the poet Alphonse de Lamartine, Ivan Turgenev, Duke Amedeo d'Aosta and the novelist Marguerite Yourcenar, who wrote The Coup de Grâce while staying here.

02Rooms and suites

Fifty rooms and suites are spread through the main house and a smaller dependance, no two alike. Interiors favour clean lines and plenty of natural light, with antique furniture, statues and frescoes set against bright white walls hung with contemporary art, under chandeliers, some cast from Murano glass.

Insider tip

Near Piazza Tasso and the port at Marina Piccola; reachable by train from Naples to Sorrento.

The largest, the Lord Astor Suite, runs to 80 square metres built around pieces from the hotel's own art collection; the Vesuvio Suite covers 75 square metres facing the volcano across the bay; smallest is the 20-square-metre Classic Sea View. The most talked-about is the Roccia Suite, a 645-square-foot room carved from an ancient Roman cavern, with an indoor hydrotherapy pool and vaulted walls left bare so the stonework still shows.

03Where to eat

Dinner is usually taken at La Pergola, the panoramic terrace restaurant, under chef Carmine Bellini, who cooks with citrus, grapevine and walnut produce from the Sorrento peninsula; in winter, service shifts indoors to the Mimmo Jodice room, hung with photographs by the Neapolitan photographer whose name it carries. Breakfast is served on the Terrazza Pompeiana or in the Sala Jodice, looking straight out over the gulf.

The bigger news arrived in September 2026. Gennaro Esposito's two-Michelin-starred restaurant, La Torre del Saracino, relocated from Vico Equense into the Bellevue Syrene, after more than thirty years shaping contemporary southern Italian cooking from its original address. First service was fixed for 17 September 2026, opening with a five-, seven- or ten-course tasting menu built around the idea of identity and territory, alongside daily dishes and vegetarian and vegan options. Esposito takes the title of Food and Beverage Manager, working alongside La Pergola's Carmine Bellini, and plans to carry his cooking into breakfast, room service and the hotel's bars, not only the restaurant. The declared ambition of the partnership is a third MICHELIN star for this stretch of Campania.

04The bar

Drinks are taken at Il Costiera, the terrace bar built for the view down the gulf, or, for hotel guests, at the Club Lounge, where a complimentary service runs throughout the day so guests can sample the area's food and wine specialities. A lift also drops down to a private jetty and bar on the seafront, a rare privilege among Sorrento's cliffside hotels.

05Spa, pool and wellbeing

Wellness here plays on the same Roman foundations as the rest of the house. The caves beneath the property can be visited to reach the ninfei a mare, the seaside nymphaea the Romans built for exactly the purpose guests still use them for today — relaxation. The wine cellar occupies one such grotto and doubles as a venue for private tastings. Above ground there is a small, mosaicked pool, a Turkish hammam and a wellness spa offering private massages and treatments.

The Roccia Suite, carved from its own Roman cavern, becomes a spa experience in its own right each autumn, its hydrotherapy pool opened to guests booking treatments rather than the room itself; in 2026 the programme runs from 12 October to 22 December.

06The neighbourhood

The hotel's position is in the heart of Sorrento, directly over the sea and within walking distance of the historic centre, with views across the Bay of Naples and easy reach of the town's alleys, boutiques and restaurants. Piazza Tasso is a few minutes on foot; so are the Correale Museum, Sorrento's Cathedral and the Marquetry Museum, the last a reminder that inlaid woodwork has been a local trade here for generations.

07Making the most of a stay

Beyond dinner at La Torre del Saracino, the hotel sells its own set pieces as gift experiences: a full day sailing the gulf aboard the private Morgan 44 named Isola, a tasting in the Roman wine cellar, or breakfast for two on the Terrazza Pompeiana. The hotel also follows the Zero Waste Hotel programme, part of a wider sustainability policy it calls Responsible Luxury. With Torre del Saracino now in residence, booking a table — not just a room — is worth doing well ahead.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.