Opening 2027

Raffles

Raffles Lake Como

Name: Raffles Lake Como
Address: Moltrasio, Lake Como, Italy

the first Raffles in Italy

Moltrasio, Lake Como, 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

This will be the first Raffles in Italy, and the brand isn't building from scratch. It's converting the Grand Hotel Imperiale at Moltrasio, a 1920s Art Nouveau pile on the quieter western shore of Lake Como, into roughly 84 rooms plus two villas. Reusing a building with that much history is a harder brief than a new-build resort, and it's the part we're most curious about.

On paper the bones are strong: one of the largest hotel shorelines on the lake, a private dock, indoor and outdoor pools, a spa, and the Raffles signatures the brand carries everywhere, the Long Bar and the Writers Bar. It's slated to open in 2027, in partnership with CL Hotel SPA, and would be Raffles' fifth hotel in Europe.

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 Raffles can hold the room on a lake that's filling up. By the time this opens in 2027, Lake Como will have absorbed the EDITION (148 keys), a Ritz-Carlton at Bellagio, and Villa d'Este's expanded holdings. Raffles is arriving late into a market that wasn't waiting for it — the brand needs a reason to choose this over an already-open alternative, and right now that story is mostly about the building.
Whether 84 rooms feels right for a heritage conversion of this scale, or whether it tips into resort logic. Raffles London and Warsaw are large-footprint urban hotels where scale works; a lakeside Art Nouveau villa at 84 keys plus two villas is a different animal. We'll be watching whether the room count ends up feeling like intimate curation or a formula applied to a building that deserved fewer rooms.
Whether the Long Bar and Writers Bar translate to Italy, or just feel imported. Both are Raffles signatures everywhere the brand goes — they work brilliantly in Singapore, they held up in Warsaw. In a country with its own deeply embedded bar and aperitivo culture, a branded concept risks reading as a franchise insert rather than a place people actually want to be.
Whether the 2027 date holds. No architect or designer has been publicly announced for a conversion of a 1920s Art Nouveau building on an Italian lakefront — a project type that regularly runs long. The partnership and financing are confirmed, but the build hasn't been far enough along to name a design team publicly, which makes 2027 a target rather than a commitment.

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 Raffles Lake Como 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 Raffles Lake Como open?

Raffles Lake Como is slated to open in 2027. No specific month has been confirmed publicly, and no design team has been named yet for what is a substantial conversion project — so treat that year as a target rather than a fixed date.

Where is Raffles Lake Como located?

The property is in Moltrasio, on the quieter western shore of Lake Como, roughly a short drive from the town of Como itself. It will have one of the largest hotel shorelines on the lake, with a private dock and direct water access.

Is this the first Raffles in Italy, and who is operating it?

Yes, it will be the brand's first Italian property and its fifth in Europe, joining London, Paris, Warsaw, and Istanbul. It is being developed in partnership with CL Hotel SPA, a local operator, and financed with UniCredit involvement.

How many rooms will Raffles Lake Como have?

The plan is for around 84 rooms, including 18 suites, plus two villas — all within the converted 1920s Art Nouveau Grand Hotel Imperiale. Many rooms are expected to face the lake.

What restaurants and facilities will it have?

Confirmed plans include a Raffles Long Bar and Writers Bar, indoor and outdoor pools, a spa and fitness centre, a beach club, and grand gardens overlooking the lake. No specific restaurant names or a chef appointment have been announced, and no architect or interior designer has been publicly named.

Will Fat Voyage score Raffles Lake Como?

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

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

Fat Favorite

Raffles

Le Royal Monceau - Raffles Paris

Paris, France

Most Paris palace hotels compete on gilt; this one competes on personality. Philippe Starck's redesign, with its 350-plus pieces of art scattered through the public spaces and rooms, gives the place a genuinely offbeat, gallery-like feel nothing else in the 8th attempts. One guest's deluxe room came with a giant mirrored bathroom and an Eiffel Tower sightline from the sitting area; another spent a jet-lagged first night being gently lectured by the turndown attendant to lock up her passport, which says something about the kind of care on offer here. The concierge team gets named and re-named by guests who keep coming back: Karla built a first-timer's itinerary around three tight days in Paris, and Mélinée comped a suite night after a rough previous stay. The people are why guests rebook, not the incidental nice touch. The building is where the price starts to wobble. Reports running into 2026 describe an AC problem needing several technician visits before a room change fixed it, a sewage smell and a damaged wall in another room, and a general sense that the fixtures don't always match the rate. First-floor rooms catch bar noise until midnight, and the front door goes unmanned often enough that guests mention coming and going unnoticed. The concierge, for all the goodwill, can be slow on basics: one simple restaurant confirmation took five days to come back. Matsuhisa gets real praise for the room and the staff, but more than one diner found the menu thin for the price; breakfast and Le Bar Long, snacks and all, get closer to universal approval. Book this one for the people and the art, not for flawless upkeep. If you want a spotless, predictable room over a hotel with an actual point of view, that's a fair preference and this isn't the address for it. For most people who've done the other Paris palaces and found them interchangeable, this is the one that stops feeling like a hotel.

Fat Favorite

Raffles

Raffles Singapore

Singapore, Singapore

Book Raffles for the all-suite rooms and the staff who seem to have been doing this since 1887. That's the pattern across nearly every recent stay: a doorman named Narendra greeting returning guests by name after a single day out, a butler covering a cash-only cab fare when a card failed, hot honey-lemon water arriving for a hoarse guest before anyone asked. The 2019 restoration keeps earning the same praise: soaring ceilings, period furnishings, bathrooms as large as the bedroom, and it reads as restored rather than staged. Breakfast comes up constantly as the best meal of the trip, the mee goreng singled out often enough that it isn't a fluke. That's not the whole stay, though. Pre-arrival emails go unanswered for weeks — one guest waited three weeks just to confirm a room location, with nothing back. Check-in has produced real misses: wrong suite categories, guests left waiting past 3pm with a manager's apology and no follow-up after. And there's an uncomfortable, recurring thread of guests in casual dress being challenged about whether they belong on property — one traveller says it happened four separate times in a single stay. That's not a bad afternoon; it's frequent enough that you should assume it could happen to you too, whatever you're wearing. The Tiffin Room splits opinion every time: a gorgeous room, food that lands well for some and falls flat for others. If what you want is the history, the courtyards, and staff who remember your drink order by day two, this still beats Fullerton Bay for that particular feeling, and it's worth the price for it. If you're travelling casually and don't want to explain yourself to a doorman, price that risk in before you book, not after.

Fat Favorite

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Raffles Udaipur

Udaipur, India

Book Raffles Udaipur for the island itself, not just the Raffles name on the door. It sits on its own patch of Udai Sagar, reached by a short dhow boat crossing, and almost every recent guest writes about the same thing before anything else: staff who remember a kid's food allergy, an anniversary, a father's retirement, and act on it. Named staff show up constantly and specifically — Gaurav upgrading a couple to a private pool room after learning it was a celebration, a housekeeping manager named Satya walking a lost family 40 minutes back to the property on his own time, off shift. That's the kind of detail a script doesn't produce. The building earns its own case: colonial-trader-estate architecture, lake views from most rooms, and enough going on (archery, pottery, birdwatching, a nightly Rajasthani show) that several guests say they never left the island and didn't miss the old city. Chef Ranchhod's Rajasthani menu at Sawai gets called out by name more than once, dishes and all. The trade-off is the buffet, which more than one guest flags as repetitive across a multi-night stay, and one detailed account from July 2026 describes a front-desk and restaurant team that walked past guests without acknowledging them and left a tea service without napkins — a real miss, and worth knowing about, though it sits against a much larger stack of specific, glowing service reports naming staff by name, week after week. This isn't a hotel for people who want to walk out the door into old Udaipur; it's for people who want the island to be the whole trip. Families and honeymooners get the most out of it, based on what's written here. Book it for the staff and the setting, and let the boat ride be part of the arrival.

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.

Get notified

Be first when Raffles Lake Como 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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