Opening Late 2027

Capella

Capella Florence

Name: Capella Florence
Address: Florence, Italy

Capella's first in Europe

Florence, Italy

Get notified when it opens

The day it opens + our first honest verdict. No paid placements. Joins the Fat Voyage list — leave any time.

First look

Capella Florence is the brand's first hotel in Europe, and it's not arriving quietly. The Singapore-based group is taking over the San Gallo complex on Via San Gallo, a cluster of former convents that traces back to the 12th century and later did time as a military hospital, a few minutes from the Duomo and Piazza della Libertà. Restoring 800 years of stonework into a working hotel is the kind of brief that either sings or goes badly wrong.

On paper, the numbers are restrained for a city-center palazzo conversion: 89 keys, split into 56 guestrooms, 33 suites and 10 residences. The Italian firms RPA and De Vita & Schulze are handling the architecture, with French studio Liaigre on interiors. Plans mention a 600-square-meter spa, two restaurants and a rooftop bar.

Not yet scored. We publish a Fat Score only once a hotel is open and real guests have stayed and written about it — this is a first look, not a verdict.

What we'll be watching

We haven't stayed yet — here's what will decide whether it lands when we do.

Whether the Japanese omakase lands in a Tuscan palazzo. Capella is swinging between two restaurants — one for local Tuscan cuisine, one for an intimate Japanese sushi omakase — plus a rooftop bar and a subterranean speakeasy. That is a lot of culinary range for a brand making its European debut; we will be watching whether the omakase is a genuine destination or a safe-hedge concept that reads as oddly placed once you are sitting inside a 12th-century convent.
Whether 89 keys across a multi-building medieval complex feels coherent. Capella's Asian properties are known for operating at hotel-scale density and delivering on it; the San Gallo complex, which once housed three separate convents, is a different kind of brief. The risk is a property that reads like connected buildings rather than a single hotel.
Whether Liaigre's residential aesthetic translates to hospitality. The design house is running both the hotel interiors and the 10 branded residences — their first hospitality project in this form. Liaigre's furniture is superb; whether the firm can hold the full-hotel experience together at operational scale is an open question for a European debut.
Whether 2027 holds on a heritage site of this complexity. One of the last major hospitality projects permitted inside Florence's historic district, the San Gallo complex spans 800 years of layered use and requires sign-off from preservation authorities. Heritage conversions in Italy have a reliable way of stretching. We will take the 2027 date as reported rather than final.

First look · gallery

Renderings & press imagery, courtesy of the hotel — details may change before opening.

Sofie, who runs the Fat Voyage booking desk with Nicolas

Want us to get you in when it opens?

Nothing to book yet — rates usually load a few months out. We're Sofie and Nicolas; tell us roughly what you're after and we'll come back the moment Capella Florence is bookable, with rates, what the rooms are actually like, and whether we'd go in the first season.

You'll be dealing with the two of us the whole way through, which is why we only take on a handful of trips at a time — if we're full, we'll say so. We reply by email, usually within one working day. The hotel pays us, not you: your rate is the same as booking direct, and the perks come on top.

Before it opens

When does Capella Florence open?

Capella Florence is expected to open in 2027, as reported consistently across trade press since the announcement. No specific month has been confirmed, and the date should be treated as reported rather than final — heritage conversions inside Florence's protected historic district are subject to preservation sign-off, and that process can extend timelines.

Where is Capella Florence located?

It sits on Via San Gallo in central Florence, within the San Gallo complex — a cluster of former convents dating to the 12th century, a few minutes' walk from the Duomo and near Piazza della Libertà. The site later served as a monastery, an artists' residence, and a military hospital before conversion to a hotel.

Is this Capella's first hotel in Europe?

Yes, Capella Florence is the Singapore-based brand's European debut. The group has operated primarily across Asia and the Middle East; this is its first property on the continent.

How many rooms will Capella Florence have?

The property is planned at 89 keys in total: 56 guestrooms, 33 suites, and 10 private residences. The residences are designed and branded by interior firm Liaigre, which is also handling the hotel's interiors throughout.

What restaurants and facilities are planned?

Plans call for five food and beverage venues: a Tuscan restaurant, a Japanese omakase sushi bar, a rooftop bar with Florence skyline views, and a subterranean speakeasy wine vault. The wellness offer includes a 600-square-meter spa with hydro pool and fitness center, plus an indoor amphitheater. Architecture is by Italian firms RPA and De Vita & Schulze; interiors are by French design house Liaigre.

Will Fat Voyage score Capella Florence?

We publish a Fat Score only once a hotel is open and real guests have stayed and written about it — drawn from luxury travel communities, editorial publications, and verified guests, never paid placements. This is a first look, not a verdict; we'll score it once there's enough independent signal to be fair.

Open now

What you can book today

Capella Florence is still under wraps. Here's what's already open and scored in our collection — more from Capella, and nearby in Italy.

Fat Legend

Capella

Capella Bangkok

Bangkok, Thailand

Capella Bangkok runs on people who know your name and act on it, and the reviews make that concrete rather than vague. One guest's Culturist heard she was tired from the flight and had a bubble bath and a private mask-making workshop waiting before she asked twice. Another had a tuk-tuk driver try to hustle him right outside the property; the team pulled him back inside and handled it themselves. Golf and Oat at the pool, Vam at the Tea Lounge, May at Stella bar all come up by name for the same reason: they remember what you drink, what you ordered yesterday, what you're celebrating. Every room has a genuine river view and outdoor space, plunge-pool villas included, and the Auriga Spa's jacuzzi and steam rooms get called some guests' best ever, full stop. The catch is fixed and worth knowing before you book: you're on the wrong side of the river from Sukhumvit and Thonglor, and getting to the malls or the BTS means the hotel boat and some planning rather than a walk out the door. Breakfast is otherwise a genuine highlight — Japanese and Korean dishes draw praise from everyone — but Thai guests specifically flag the Thai dishes as adapted rather than the real thing. The pet policy is real but unevenly briefed: one dog-owning guest asked front desk staff where dogs were allowed and got sent to a second colleague, then a third, and the "Dog Not Allowed" sign at Phra Nakhon turned out not to mean what it said. Book it for the service and the river, not for proximity to anywhere else. Families get looked after properly rather than just tolerated, kids included, and if your Bangkok is a calm base with a two-Michelin-star restaurant and a spa people keep calling their best ever, nothing on this side of the city touches it.

Fat Favorite

Capella

Capella Ubud

Ubud, Indonesia

Capella Ubud gets talked about for two things: Bill Bensley's tented design and staff who seem to know your schedule by day two. Vidi the duty manager keeps coming up as the one who makes people feel tracked rather than processed, greeting returning guests in their own language and steering them through the property like he's done it a hundred times. The 23 tents are individually themed, copper bathtubs and outdoor showers and all, and Api Jiwa is the meal people build a night around, alongside excursions like the Wos River Temple ritual that read as genuine rather than staged. The concept is also what you're actually signing up for, and it splits people. These are canvas-walled tents with open-plan bathrooms and no glass, linked by roughly 120 steps up and down a jungle valley: extraordinary to look at, harder to live in for a week if you want a normal room and a phone that works. One 2026 stay found dead power outlets, a soaked deck cushion, and a broken room phone with no way to reach reception short of climbing those steps in the rain. When the theatrical design meets an off day, there's no easy backup, and that's the real risk here, not the concept itself. The bar and a few restaurant dishes have also been flagged as a notch below the service around them, which says more about how good the staff are than how bad the kitchen is. Book it for an experience, not a hotel room. Nobody who loves this place is comparing it to a conventional five-star, they're comparing it to nowhere else in Bali. If a proper bed-and-bath layout matters more to you than atmosphere, that's a fair reason to look elsewhere; people who've made that trade tend to land at Amandari instead. For everyone else, it's the tents, the temple ritual, and staff who remember your birthday without being told twice.

Fat Favorite

Aman

Aman Venice

Venice, Italy

Palazzo Papadopoli is doing almost all the work here, and it earns that. No other hotel in Venice has original Tiepolo ceilings over the breakfast tables and a walled private garden steps from the Grand Canal. Guests keep calling breakfast in the frescoed ballroom one of the best things they did in the city, and the service holds up as some of the strongest anywhere in the Aman network: one guest arrived to find their lost water-taxi bag already tracked down by the staff, no second ask required. Entry-level rooms get Aman's stripped-back minimalism with none of the frescoes or gilding that make the story work, and can be oddly placed or partly subterranean; one guest paying around €1,600 a night, on a discounted low-season rate, said it simply wasn't worth it. Book below a fresco or canal-facing suite and you're paying palazzo prices for a room that could belong to any well-made hotel. The spa is small to start with and has drawn some real complaints about quality, so this isn't the place to lean on for a resort-style stay, and it isn't built for families either — most reports agree Aman leans toward couples rather than kids. Book the right room, skip leaning on the spa, and this is genuinely one of the more special stays in the city — the frescoes, the garden, and a boat pulling up to your own private dock are not things you can get anywhere else on the Grand Canal.

Fat Legend

Belmond

Belmond Hotel Caruso

Ravello, Italy

Most people who write about the Caruso end up talking about the pool and then, almost despite themselves, about a specific person: Giovanni running the Grill, Donatella pulling off a wedding, Carmine at the bar with a gimlet that gets its own mention. That's the pattern here, not the marble or the frescoes. A fifty-plus room hotel running weddings most days of the summer still has front-desk and pool staff getting named by first name, which is a harder trick to pull off than it sounds. Some real trade-offs are worth pricing in. A few guests found the mood more correct than warm outside of milestone occasions: one couple who eloped there said the front desk congratulated them on arrival, and then the day was never mentioned again over dinner. Weddings on property, sometimes daily in peak season, crowd the pool and pull staff attention elsewhere; one traveller described the pool as noticeably fuller in mid-June than they'd expected from the photos. The Belmond name buys nothing on its own either: one guest who loved Caruso came back with a rough account of La Residencia, hairs and stains left on the bed, staff distracted by weddings there too, which is exactly why this is a hotel you're booking, not a brand you're trusting. Opinion splits on food too. Plenty call the Grill the best meal of their Italy trip, but a few who'd also done Il San Pietro or Borgo Santandrea rated those higher on the plate itself. None of that changes what happens most nights: a terrace view people keep calling the best on the coast, a pool that reads better in person than in photos, and a team that will spray and brush olive oil off a white shirt without being asked twice. Book it for the setting above Ravello and the people who run it, and treat wedding season as a scheduling question, not a reason to look elsewhere.

Get notified

Be first when Capella Florence opens

We'll email you the day it opens — and our first honest verdict once guests have actually stayed. No paid placements, ever.

Joins the Fat Voyage list — leave any time.

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