Rome, Italy

DOM Hotel

Price per night from$319.64

Price information

If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (EUR295.45), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Style

Arty aristocrat

Setting

Refined Regola quarter

If your name is Don Corleone, DOM Hotel might not be for you: it’s located in the ravishing Regola quarter, right opposite Rome’s anti-mafia headquarters. If you go by any other name though, you’ll love it here, thanks to this sophisticated 17th-century palazzo’s historic gravitas and city-central location. Ye olde plaques from the handsome church next door hang proudly on walls, engraved with D.O.M., which stands for ‘deo optimo maximo’, meaning ‘to God, best, and greatest’. The smart little restaurant, pretty, city-surveying roof terrace, romantic rooms and impeccable service might prompt your own religious leanings…

Smith Extra

Get this when you book through us:

A bottle of prosecco in your room on arrival

Facilities

Photos DOM Hotel facilities

Need to know

Rooms

Eighteen, including four suites.

Check–Out

Noon, but flexible, subject to availability. Earliest check-in, 2pm.

Prices

Double rooms from £278.48 (€325), including tax at 10 per cent. Please note the hotel charges an additional local city tax of €10.00 per person per night on check-out.

More details

Rates usually include WiFi and breakfast (a magnificent buffet, whose highlights include milkshakes and fresh juices, just-baked bread and pastries, eggs Benedict, smoked salmon, cheese, meats and more).

Also

If you like the look of DOM, check out its sophisticated, Smith-approved sister, Palazzo Dama…

At the hotel

Roof terrace and free WiFi throughout. In rooms: TV, desk, minibar.

Our favourite rooms

It has to be the top-drawer DOM Suite, on account of its ravishing roof terrace that surveys the neighbouring church’s mighty bell tower.

Packing tips

Bring a shirt or dress in papal red; leave space in your case for local olive oil and wine.

Also

Massages, manicures, pedicures and other grooming treatments can be arranged in-room, if you ask nicely…

Pet‐friendly

Dogs and cats can stay for free, on request. See more pet-friendly hotels in Rome.

Children

This is a more a grown-up getaway, but kids of all ages are welcome; parents will need to bring all their kit (the hotel doesn’t have any family-friendly extras).

Food and Drink

Photos DOM Hotel food and drink

Top Table

Nab a cosy sofa with Warhol-works views. You can also arrange private dining in the Deer Club’s secret back room; a barman and waiter will be at your disposal for the night, too.

Dress Code

Relaxed Roman: rich hues, cashmere, silk, velvet, leather – and a dash of Acqua di Parma, perhaps.

Hotel restaurant

Verve Restaurant's delicious regional dishes (rabbit-stuffed carrot ravioli; partridge with walnuts and vermouth; and a dessert with hazelnut, figs and caramelised pork cheek) are the work of talented chefs Adriano Magnoli and Antonella Mascolo. Cuisine is largely rustic, displaying a deep reverence for the bucolic surroundings and meals are served in a 17th-century building. Order the tasting menus (for the whole table) to sample a little of everything.

Hotel bar

Enjoy elegant antipasti and potent cocktails in Verve. We’d order another round of DOM Collins if we could: a refreshing muddle of geranium gin, lemon juice, lavender water and geranium essence. As you’d expect from a refined Roman, DOM’s wine, champagne, prosecco and spirits selection is beyond reproach. Add elegant antipasti, if you’re peckish.

Last orders

Eat at the Verve Restaurant until 11pm; drinks are available until 2am.

Room service

A small selection of light snacks and mains – Italian meats and cheeses; toast; vegetable lasagna – can be ordered to your room around the clock.

Location

Photos DOM Hotel location
Address
DOM Hotel
Via Giulia 131
Rome
00186
Italy

DOM boasts a peaceful perch on a quiet side street in central Rome, right next to the Chiesa Santa Lucia del Gonfalone, a beautiful 17th-century church.

Planes

Fiumicino Airport, the city’s main international hub, is 30 kilometres away (a 45-minute drive). Hotel transfers are €84 a person; you can also flag taxis outside the airport.

Trains

Trains from Florence, Milan, Naples, Venice, Turin and Bari pull into Termini station, a 15-minute drive from DOM (www.romatermini.com).

Automobiles

DOM doesn’t have private parking; guests can use the public car park across the street from the hotel for €24 a day.

Worth getting out of bed for

It would be rude not to pay a trip to the Vatican, especially since it’s only a 20-minute stroll away, on the other side of the river. Enjoy the passeggiata (and gelato) at Piazza Navona, a beautiful square that’s just 10 minutes away by foot. If you need to escape the city’s buzz, go for a wander around Orto Botanico, Rome’s peaceful botanic gardens. DOM is also very close to Campo de’ Fiori square, the trendy Trastevere district and San Pietro church.

Local restaurants

Assunta Madre serves succulent seafood and toothsome fish in an elegant setting that shares DOM’s crush on exposed brick and dark, masculine hues. The restaurant also shares Via Giulia with DOM, so you won’t have far to stagger home after your lobster, langoustine, clams, pasta and tiramisu. See why Il Pagliaccio on Via dei Banchi Vecchi has earned itself two Michelin stars by opting for its 10-course tasting menu, whose dishes – courtesy of culinary maestro Anthony Genovese – pair European and Asian flavours, to dazzling effect. Per Me on Vicolo del Malpasso gets rave reviews for its swish Mediterranean cuisine; the ambitious tasting menus include ‘Sea Rhythms’ and ‘Between Earth and Sea’.

Reviews

Photos DOM Hotel reviews
Nicola Stewart

Anonymous review

By Nicola Stewart, Travel and food writer

If you arrive at DOM Hotel and find yourself wondering why there’s an armed guard stood outside, don’t be alarmed, that’s just the Anti-Mafia Headquarters opposite adding a touch of The Godfather to Rome’s Regola quarter.

It certainly surprised me though, as did DOM when I headed inside. While the exterior is fairly quiet and unassuming (except for that armed guard, of course), walking inside is a bit like walking into one of those very chic, sexy Dolce and Gabbana ads. Not the summery floral ones, the ones where Monica Bellucci smoulders in black lace.

The décor is dark, opulent and accessorised with things you don’t necessarily need, but you do want. I don’t even know if you could buy the jewellery in the cabinet, or if it was simply ornamental, but it looked great. On reception, the girls were just as stylish – all immaculately presented Italian beauties with slicked back ponytails and identical little black dresses. I actually wouldn’t have been surprised if Monica herself had walked in to escort us to our room.

She didn’t of course, much to Mr Smith’s disappointment I’m sure. Instead that was left to Marco, who led us through the low-lit corridors and also kindly gave us an unprompted potted history of the 17th-century building. It seemed that everywhere in Rome had a story.

Set in an old monastery, DOM has made the original stones slabs from the church next door, which still exists, part of the decor both around the hotel and in the bathrooms. The hotel has even taken its name from them: ‘Deo optimo maximo’ – often abbreviated to DOM – is a Latin phrase which means something along the lines of ‘to God, most good, most great’. The hotel felt even more historic and impressive when Marco told us that Michelangelo and Raphael had once stayed in the very same street.

Once in our room we were even more impressed; how had DOM made a monastery of all places into such a sleek and sexy boutique hotel? The bedroom featured a palette of understated neutrals and greys, but design details that were the opposite – a very large, overstated mirror took up nearly a whole wall. In the bathroom you could still see the arc of the monastery’s original ceiling and more off those stone slabs in the huge walk-in shower area, as well as plush velvet armchair. Velvet in the bathroom, though completely unnecessary and, dare I say, highly impractical, added the right touch of decadence.  

Forgoing a Friday night of drinking and dining in order to fit in the Vatican Museums – art had to come before Aperol unfortunately – we did take a sneak peek at the rooftop terrace just to see what we were missing out on. The hotel works with the nearby Michelin-starred restaurant Achilli al Parlamento on its own roof terrace restaurant, a dining experience complete with a private view over the Tiber river and the burnt-orange Roman rooftops across the Regola quarter. We were missing out…

We still had the opportunity to feast at breakfast though, which the hotel serves in its opulent downstairs dining room, complete with Warhol-esque prints, velvet couches, jewel-coloured drapes, yet more mirrors and chandeliers. It was a good room to indulge in, and the rich, chocolate hazelnut-filled croissants washed down with fresh Italian coffee is the best way to do it.

In fact, it was a good hotel to indulge in. Just as I was getting used to all the chandeliers and velvet drapes, though, it was time to leave. But we decided we’d be back – I’ll just need to remember that little black dress for some rooftop spritz sipping…

 
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Price per night from $319.64