Borgo Santandrea – Amalfi's first new address in fifteen years

Borgo Santandrea climbs a cliff face above Conca dei Marini, the fishing village a few minutes along the coast from Amalfi, its tiered white arches and terraces rising some ninety metres from the Tyrrhenian Sea. The hotel occupies a villa built in the 1950s as the Grand Hotel Saraceno, which two Italian hospitality families, the Orlacchio and De Siano, spent almost four years restoring with architect Rino Gambardella before it reopened to guests in 2021. It arrived as the first new luxury hotel to open on the Amalfi Coast in fifteen years, complete with its own private beach, jetty and three restaurants built into the rock. Today the MICHELIN Guide awards Borgo Santandrea Three Keys, and its signature restaurant, Alici, led by executive chef Crescenzo Scotti, holds a MICHELIN star of its own, cooked on a terrace suspended between sky and sea.

01The house

The building itself tells the Amalfi story twice over. Its structure, a 1960s villa standing on a cliff ninety metres above Conca dei Marini, was built as the Grand Hotel Saraceno; the Orlacchio and De Siano families bought it and commissioned architect Rino Gambardella to restore it, a project that began in 2017. Rather than demolish, Gambardella's team tested the original 1960s load-bearing structure, found it sound, and rebuilt the interiors around it, folding in a pre-existing eighteenth-century house that had stood on the site long before the hotel did.

Building on a vertical cliff meant unusual logistics: materials arrived by a crane mounted at the top of the property, reassembled each year and dismantled for winter to avoid disturbing the sea below. The result, opened to guests in 2021, was described at the time as the first new luxury hotel to open on the Amalfi Coast in fifteen years, arriving with its own private beach, jetty and oceanfront pool.

02Rooms and suites

Borgo Santandrea opened with 29 guestrooms and 16 suites, each looking over the sea and the old fishing hamlet of Conca dei Marini below. Interiors mix mid-century European design with Amalfi craft: Gio Ponti's geometric sensibility inspired thirty bespoke ceramic tile patterns made by local artisans, while furniture ranges from Molteni&C's Heritage Collection to custom pieces by family-run makers Tosconova and LISAR.

Insider tip

Reachable by complimentary shuttle from Amalfi, by road from Naples, or by private boat to its own jetty.

Superior Rooms run 28 to 32 square metres with lateral sea views, marble bathrooms, walk-in rainfall showers and Acqua di Parma toiletries. At the top of the range, the Premium Suite spreads across 137 square metres with its own garden, while several suites come with private heated plunge pools kept at a comfortable thirty degrees.

03Where to eat

Alici is the hotel's Michelin-starred fine-dining room, welcoming guests each evening on a terrace suspended between sky and sea for a tasting of Campanian cooking. Executive chef Crescenzo Scotti, who trained in kitchens including Le Calandre and Agli Amici before leading the kitchens at Therasia Resort and Villa Cimbrone, builds his menu around Amalfi lemons and regional seafood. Signature dishes include Risotto del Borgo with Amalfi Coast lemons, Linguine alla Nerano with courgette and basil, and a Mediterranean Cappuccino built on blue lobster.

By day, the same kitchen space opens for breakfast before the room resets for dinner service. Down at sea level, the more relaxed Marinella Restaurant serves traditional regional classics beside the water, while AQVA, the beach club's own restaurant, keeps the private jetty and pebble shore fed through the afternoon.

04The bar

At the Marinella Beach Club, the Riva Lounge celebrates the Italian boat brand with a waterfront atmosphere looking straight out to sea, a fitting backdrop for a hotel that keeps its own fleet of Riva yachts and Wally boats for guests arriving, or exploring the coast, by water. Up on the clifftop, the Plumbago Bar and an on-site wine cellar round out the drinking side of a property built as much for lingering as for dining.

05Spa and wellbeing

The Wellness Retreat is a sea-view sanctuary in Conca dei Marini built as a deliberate pause from the pace of the coast outside, pairing a fully equipped gym, sauna and emotional shower with an outdoor terrace. Guests can book massages, body rituals and beauty treatments with the in-house team of therapists in a private setting away from the main terraces.

06The neighbourhood

Borgo Santandrea sits roughly ten minutes from the town of Amalfi, reachable by the hotel's own complimentary shuttle by land or by sea, which keeps the property feeling private even though the cathedral square is close. The gardens that link the clifftop to the beach were planted with the coast's own horticultural history in mind: olive, lemon and pomegranate trees alongside myrtle shrubs dating back some 150 years, among the plantings that landscape architect Philip Adiutori worked into the terraces. Within a few years of opening, the hotel had already found a place on the World's 50 Best Hotels list.

07Making the most of a stay

The ninety-metre drop from clifftop to shoreline is handled by eight lifts, so the private pebble beach, the jetty and the top-floor terrace are all a short ride apart rather than a climb. Arriving by private boat from Naples or Capri and mooring directly at the Borgo's own jetty is as much a part of the experience as the rooms themselves. For dinner, booking Alici's terrace tables ahead matters in high season; for transfers, Naples international airport is around ninety minutes away by road.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.