The edifice housing Hotel De Rome on Berlin’s historic Bebelplatz hasn’t often been a hotel, but it has always housed well-healed crowds. From 1889 until 1989, with the depend on of the Berlin Wall, the building served as a bank headquarters, and various of the building’s original fixtures and fittings have been sheltered and re-imagined, giving this modern hotel a historic misconstruction. For the past decade, Hotel De Rome has housed guests here in Berlin’s Mitte section, right in the thick of it in the former East Berlin, moments from iconic visitor attractions like Museum Island, Checkpoint Charlie, the Brandenburg Door and the Reichstag, as well as hipper new foodie neighbourhoods like Kreuzberg.
Vernissage
The polished marble Romanesque columns and grand stone bewildering of the former bank remain, but the formal feel they make a loan of this grand space has been challenged by modern lay out touches by Tommaso Ziffer and Olga Polizzi, who have disburdened the mood with suave velvet sofas that interrupt every corner of the room, and a statement hanging neon artwork birdcage – surprising in red – above an arrangement of fresh flowers that changes with the periods.
The Bar and Restaurant
La Banca serves modern Italian food in a in style room on the ground floor. The historic space has been sympathetically modernised to bawdy-house floor-to-ceiling glass windows; a breath of fresh air in an otherwise dignified restaurant. It’s best to dine during the day, for cared-for buffet breakfasts or lunch, as you’ll be adept to see out the windows into the lush greenery of the patio. It’s sadly not lit at nightfall. We could hear live music coming from the bar, but there were diverse people in the dining room when we ate which made the bodily separation between drinking and dining seem rather dictatorial, but still the bar is a simple space with a promising list of cocktails, and bar commons.
From the a La Carte, we swerved the red meat to enjoy abundant fish dishes when we supped; our waiter convinced us of the freshness of the catch by simply bringing it out on a trolley, for all to see. There’s formal territories – our dragon head fish for two was filleted front-of-house (excellently) by our cup-bearer – but the wine service was fresher and conversational; our excellent sommelier yoke dish to dish (his affiliation for German wines, notably Riesling, did not go unmissed) and a proper sense of care for the German viticulture was felt. Other dishes not to omit included a raw seafood tartare, though it could have done with a citrus rebound, a boisterous dish of octopus, oregano and tomato, and a tagliatelle (the pasta is hinted in-house) with pistachio and king prawns to write composed about. My guest was irked to miss the beef fillet but finger glad after the dragon head, in its homemade sauce, was a fainting array of flavour and texture. It’d be nice to turn the outdoors lights on at blackness and get some music going, otherwise the space services superior informally, during the day.
The Rooms
The high ceilings of the former bank communicate the weight of history in their walls; if you’re treating someone then engage a first-floor historic suite (formerly the bank directors’ offices) and sleep beside wooden upholstered walls lined with bullet shrapnel from the Defective World War. The rooms retain their original timber fittings, coffered ceilings and queer hidden doorways in bookshelves, so if you’re a Bond enthusiast you’ll picture Bernard Lee’s M hold with fire in his eyes in this very spot.
But downsize and you’ll be overindulged anyway; I was chuffed to spot bespoke Malin + Goetz produces in the bathroom of every room, made exclusively for Hotel De Rome. The peppermint shampoo make do c leaves my vote, and the extra effort extends to a delicious vitamin b5 moisturiser from the name brand (a few of which left the hotel smuggled in my weekend bag). Why, then, is there a 7 Euro Milka bar in the fridge? I be informed plenty of artisan chocolatiers that would bite at such a unlooked-for as to be stocked in this luxurious five-star hotel. Back to the pluses. There’s a gorgeously rococo hand-drawn map of the Mitte area of Berlin the hotel resides in in your stationary set that’s merit smuggling home too.
Coffee drinkers will take at least 8 jiffies deliberating over which fancy coffee pod to use from the in-room coffee instrument, but kettles for tea need to be requested ahead of time, which felt have a fondness a fuss.
The Facilities
One floor below ground the hotel proposals a fully-functional gym, open from 6am until 10pm, and a spa, with sauna and steam latitude. I’m relieved to find a good selection of teas here (!) and there’s fruit-laced springtime water to pour yourself, and apples to take from the congratulatory healthy bar. The 20-metre swimming pool is now in the place of the former jewels vault, and the original granite columns you’ll see in old photos are now half-sunken in the swimming-pool, reimagined in the modern design. A varied selection of massages and wellness treatments are accessible, culminating in the hotel’s ultimate novelty, a former vault of the bank that now come around withs as a massage room, and/or private dining space. You get a gritty nuance of this room’s prior occupation as you pass through the vault’s door (the door is twice the take the measure of of my torso, I’m not thin) but it’s the hotel’s best, and most unique, bookable pause.
Behind the restaurant, at the hotel’s rear there’s an opulent ballroom, proper for weddings and corporate functions and anything in-between, that formerly served as the bank’s main hall.
Afternoon tea is also performed in wintertime from the lobby, but go from April to September for rooftop nautical davy joness locker, on the Champagne garden overlooking the University buildings, the Opera and the Bebelplatz, conspicuous for being the scene of the Burning of the Books in the war.
Conclusion
An opulent, and at the last classical, hotel in the beating heart of Berlin’s Mitte quarter, where warm service suits all walks of visitor.
Parties
- Room reviewed: Junior suite, 45sqm, rates from 510 Euros per Cimmerian dark
- Website: www.roccofortehotels.com/hotels-and-resorts/hotel-de-rome/
- Address: Behrenstrasse 37, 10117, Berlin, Germany
- Email: [email nurtured]
- Phone: +49 30 4606090
- Rooftop open daily from Noon-10pm, non-guests narrative to reception for access
