The Hoxton, Florence

The Hoxton took two buildings for its Florence hotel and did not try to make them match. One is a late-Renaissance palazzo built for the Ricasoli family, arcaded and shuttered. The other is an 1980s block by Andrea Branzi, who co-founded Archizoom and then Memphis, and whose work is the reason the place has any edge at all. Most hotels in this city are busy performing the Renaissance. This one puts it next to the decade that spent its energy mocking good taste, and lets you look at both.

It opened in the middle of April 2025 and we arrived three weeks later, which usually means finding the seams. We did not. It felt finished, and the staff gave no impression of a hotel still learning its own floor plan.

There are 161 rooms and a Cosy, which is what we had, is a Cosy: 17 square metres at the bottom of the range, efficiently arranged and not somewhere to spend an afternoon. That is the trade the brand has always made, and it is a fair one when the money has gone into the public rooms instead. Alassio does coastal Mediterranean food, Enoteca Violetta is a proper wine bar rather than a lobby with bottles in it, and there is a tavern in the basement. The rooftop terrace is private hire only, which is a shame and worth knowing before you picture yourself on it.

The thing most reviews will hold against it is the address. Via delle Mantellate is a good fifteen minutes north of the Duomo, outside the part of Florence that sells fridge magnets. We would put it the other way round. You spend the day in the crush and then walk out of it, and the last ten minutes of the evening are quiet streets rather than queues. A couple who want to see the city and then stop seeing it will get more out of this than out of anywhere nearer the cathedral.