A run-down 15th-century palazzo in Florence's Oltrarno district has been reborn as La Réserve Firenze, the French luxury brand's first Italian property. The project belongs to Grégory and Olivia Marciano, a French couple (he co-founded the Sushi Shop chain, sold in 2018 for around €240m; she worked at Dior) who relocated to the city with their three sons in 2019 and stumbled on the building in 2022 – then a chaotic warren of student rooms, with frescoes hidden behind walls and no air conditioning.
Rather than another boutique hotel, they created six private apartments of 180–210 sqm, sleeping parties across one to three bedrooms, with the idea that guests should feel like Florentines with their own palazzo. Paris-based designers Patrick Gilles and Dorothée Boissier restored the coffered ceilings, trompe l'oeil murals and hand-recovered frescoes while keeping the palette deliberately quiet – the theory being that after a day of Florence's visual overload, your eyes need a rest. Over 150 artworks, antique busts and 18th-century tapestries from the Marcianos' own collection are layered in like it's a family home, not a gallery. Some apartments have patios or roof terraces with 360-degree city views; shared spaces include a gym, library, billiards room, courtyard and a small rooftop bar for aperitivo hour.
There's no restaurant, which reinforces the house-party feel: a generous American breakfast is laid out in your apartment each morning, and room service comes via the trattoria Cammillo, Harry's Bar, or Ambar Kitchen – plus a Michelin-starred chef or in-residence cook on request. Laundry and a 24/7 concierge are included, and the property is clearly pitched at longer stays – think Americans visiting kids at university here, or travellers using Florence as a base for Pisa and Siena.
The real draw is the access. The Marcianos have built experiences that go well beyond the standard city tour: dinner in the Officine Gullo showroom followed by a private art historian's tour of the church of Ognissanti, where Botticelli is buried and his fresco of Saint Augustine faces off against Ghirlandaio's Saint Jerome (complete with a hidden joke in the inscription). There's lunch at the Marchesi Antinori family's abbey at Badia a Passignano, where Ghirlandaio painted one of his three Last Suppers – leaving a tablecloth teasingly unfinished – and the monks' cellars age Chianti Classico. Guests can also visit collector Christian Levett's private home of works by female Abstract Expressionists, ride a traditional barchetto boat down the Arno with prosecco, tour the Pucci archives or Stefano Ricci's silk factory, play tennis among the olive trees at the family estate, or use their beach-club access as locals do in summer.
For travellers who find Florence's hotel scene formulaic, this is a different proposition: big, calm, design-forward apartments with genuine local access, best suited to families, longer stays and anyone happy to trade a hotel restaurant for a kitchen table and a concierge with connections.
