Mr & Mrs Smith

Palazzina G

Venice, Italy

Palazzina G in Venice is a sultry, saturnine Starck hotel ferreted away behind a 16th-century façade by the Grand Canal, with a champagne bar, giant chess set and terrace-toting suites.

Need to know

• Rooms 22, including one suite and six suite apartments.
• Rates Double rooms from $530.70 (€424), excluding tax at 10 per cent.
  Prices have been converted from the hotel's local currency (€424), via XE.com, using today's exchange rate.
• More details €352–€1,991, excluding breakfast (€25 each for Continental; €55 for PG's full American, served anywhere). Apartments, €2,500–€12,000 a night.
• Facilities Library, members- and residents-only Krug champagne lounge; 1962 mahogany Celli boat; private landing pier; roof terrace; free WiFi throughout. In rooms: Starck fixtures and fittings, backlit mirror walls, programmable lighting, in-mirror LCD TV, iPod dock, minibar (with decent-sized bottles). There’s a giant chess set outside, by the canal.
• Check-out 12 noon, but flexible until 3pm if the room’s available. Earliest check-in, 2pm.
• Children Cots are free for under-threes, but extra beds for older kids cannot be provided. A local nanny can be called upon for babysitting services (€25 an hour).
• Also Well-behaved dogs are welcome for €50 a night. Check-in can be on-boat, in your room or in the bar.Staff can arrange a host of authentic Venetian experiences – from insider city tours to cooking classes from a countess.

Food and drink at Palazzina G

• Hotel restaurant

  Meals are served pretty much anywhere, but the main dining area is in PG’s, where there’s an open kitchen. Luigi Frascella is the man behind the menu: a contemporary reinvention of traditional Venetian cicchetti, with an Oriental flourish, using ingredients fresh from the Rialto.

• Dress code Rich, ducal fabrics: velvet, cashmere and damask.
• Top table People-watch from a perch at the bar, or sit at the long table by the show kitchen to watch the chefs at work.
• Last orders Breakfast can be served at any time. Lunch is on offer from noon until 4pm. Dinner is 7pm until 11pm. The bar shuts at 2am.
• Room service Anything the hotel’s kitchens can produce is available until midnight, after which a smaller, night menu kicks in. You can have food and drink brought to you anywhere you wish.
• Hotel bar

  PG’s is a mood-lit mahogany cocktail den of exposed brick, velvet and leather. Lamps resemble gorgon heads; 15th-century pillars prop up the bars, and candles flicker in glimmering Murano-glass holders. Suite Apartment guests also get access to the Krug Lounge, a sultry, scarlet-carpeted ‘champagnerie’ with animal-shaped leather stools.

Palazzina G San Marco 3247, Venice, 30124