Ultimately it’s the owners’ generous hospitality, performed just as well by their amiable house team, that drives the ethos of La Réserve Firenze. Checking in here feels like staying with kind and worldly friends, or—because the Marcianos can’t feasibly tag along for every guest’s long Florentine weekend—borrowing their palazzo and their staff with, as Olivia put it, “access to the people, places, and experiences that make Florence special to us.”
Grég and Olivia’s deep knowledge and connections unlock another side of the city, one that, as I once believed, you could easily cross off a list after a few tourist-trap stops. In the span of 72 hours, we feasted on carpaccio and veal tonnato at the grand Palazzo Antinori; dropped by the art-filled manse of their friend Christian Levett, founder of FAMM (Female Artists of the Mougins Museum); went on a private after-hours tour of the Chiesa di San Salvatore in Ognissanti to see the Botticelli frescoes; and even visited a monastery, the Abbazia di San Michele Arcangelo a Passignano, nestled in the Chianti hills. (All experiences can be arranged by the team at La Réserve Firenze.)
And of course there was the sunset aperitivo borne by barchetto. As we returned to the docks below the Uffizi Galleries, the Marcianos pointed to a verdant lawn dotted with tables on the banks of the Arno. It was the Società Canottieri Firenze, the city’s historic rowing club with a members-only restaurant and bar. Olivia had been once, she said, and the pasta was delicious. Grég is determined to join and cross the threshold of the club’s forest green porta. When you come back, they told me, we’ll take you.
The best hotels in any city give travelers the metaphorical keys to the destination, allowing them to open its secret doors, explore its rarely trodden paths, and get under its skin to understand and appreciate it all the better. In that sense, I already consider La Réserve Firenze, under the stewardship of the Marcianos, one of the best hotels in Florence.
