Experimental Roma

The Ludovisi quarter was a garden until the 1880s. In 1886 the Boncompagni, heirs of the Ludovisi princes, signed some 25 hectares of villa park over for building. Everything but the Villa Aurora came down, and Europe's intellectuals called the result an unforgivable ugliness. Via Veneto was laid out through the lots, and Fellini did the rest. Experimental Roma, in a former bank on Via Ludovisi just above it, has put a little of the garden back on its roof: stone pines and palms round a suspended pool, with the dome of St Peter's behind. Downstairs, Rodolphe Parente has set marble against stainless steel and terracotta against chrome, and laid lurex carpet as though the seventies never ended. The view rooms look across at Villa Maraini, home of the Swiss Institute, which stands on a mound heaped up from the spoil of digging Via Ludovisi, so the street outside ended up under the neighbours.

Recommended for couples who come to Rome to eat and stay out. At Ludovisi e Cadore, Giovanni Passerini, a Roman known for his cooking in Paris, makes a speciality of the quinto quarto, the parts of the animal less noble than the rest: trippa alla romana, fettuccine ai regaje. Behind the lobby, the Experimental Cocktail Club does green drapery and a curved marble bar in homage to Italian cinema, and takes no bookings. Rome is on foot from the door: twelve minutes to the top of the Spanish Steps, thirteen up to the Galleria Borghese. Children are welcome, and cots go in the larger rooms, but the house was arranged for grown-ups. The pool shuts at eight, the roof bar at eleven in summer, and the Cocktail Club at two from Thursday to Saturday, so the evening works its way down the building.