ROMEO Hotel Roma

Walk through Rome's historic center, past centuries-old churches and crumbling ruins, and you'll eventually find yourself confronted by an unusual sight: a pair of doormen who look more like nightclub bouncers than hotel staff. Welcome to Romeo Roma, where getting through the front door requires more than just wandering in off Via di Ripetta.

This isn't your typical Roman five-star experience. The hotel, housed in a 16th-century palazzo just steps from Piazza del Popolo, represents one of Zaha Hadid's final architectural statements before her death in 2016. And like much of the late British-Iraqi architect's work, it's designed to make you question everything you thought you knew about interior space.

The transformation of Palazzo Capponi into Romeo Roma took hotel owner Alfredo Romeo 12 years to complete – a timeline that stretched as archaeological discoveries kept interrupting construction.

When workers began digging for a garden, they uncovered a 2,000-year-old Roman workshop complete with intricate diamond-patterned stonework. Rather than curse the delay, Romeo embraced it, creating an underground gallery accessible through a glass-bottomed swimming pool that literally lets guests float above ancient history.

It's this kind of theatrical flourish that defines the entire hotel experience.

Il Cortile in the internal courtyard offers Mediterranean all-day dining alongside that archaeological swimming pool.

In the lobby, a fluorescent waterfall cascades down black marble walls while a solitary red grand piano provides the only splash of warm color. The effect is more spaceship than Renaissance palace, which seems entirely intentional.

Perhaps most intriguingly, the hotel functions as an accidental museum of contemporary Italian art, with works from artists like Mario Schifano and Francesco Clemente scattered throughout the public spaces.

A marble head of Livia Drusilla, Emperor Augustus's wife, discovered during excavations, now greets guests in the lobby – a reminder that in Rome, history has a habit of literally surfacing when you least expect it.

Even the hotel's main bar, Il Bar, feels like stepping inside a chrome kaleidoscope, with mesmerising metallic ceilings that fragment and multiply the light in unexpected ways.

The interaction between eras extends to the dining experience, where Alain Ducasse has opened his first Roman restaurant. The multi-Michelin-starred chef's approach to Italian cuisine is predictably refined – think Mediterranean blue lobster with wild myrtle rather than simple spaghetti carbonara.

It's undeniably accomplished, though whether it captures the soul of Roman dining is another question entirely.

Hadid's signature curves snake through all 74 rooms and suites, creating spaces where it becomes genuinely difficult to distinguish between floor, wall and ceiling.

The yacht-like interiors, clad in walnut and ebony, feel simultaneously claustrophobic and expansive – a neat architectural trick that keeps guests slightly off-balance.

Television screens masquerade as mirrors, storage compartments hide within the glossy wood paneling, and even the fireplaces seem to emerge organically from the walls.

The real magic happens on the upper floors, where Hadid's futuristic vision collides head-on with restored 17th-century frescoes. It shouldn't work – the juxtaposition of swooping modernist lines against baroque religious imagery feels like it should create visual chaos. Instead, it achieves something rather more profound: a genuine dialogue between past and future that feels uniquely Roman.

The spa, developed in partnership with Sisley Paris, occupies the basement levels where ancient Roman ruins provide an atmospheric backdrop to modern wellness treatments.

The hotel's rooftop bar, La Terrazza Krug, offers perhaps the most traditional Roman pleasure of all: spectacular views over the city's terracotta rooftops while sipping champagne. It's a partnership with the prestigious Krug house, and the setting provides a welcome respite from the architectural intensity below.