The Gritti Palace is all about the Grand Canal. Breakfast with the Salute across the water and staff who knew our names by the second morning made it feel like a private palazzo. Our top-floor suite was lovely inside, but its window looked over rooftops to a bell tower, and at around $1,100 to $1,800 a night for an entry room that's a lot to pay when the water is only downstairs. If you come, come between April and October and pay for a Landmark Grand Canal room. Without one, the St. Regis a few doors along gives you lighter, more modern rooms, usually for less. See pictures ↓
Service
Our water taxi pulled up at the hotel's own jetty on a wet, windy November day, and we stepped off the boat and in through the dark wooden door to a lobby where reception sits half hidden behind the pillars. By the second morning the staff in the restaurant and on our floor were using our names, and I started to feel I was living inside a film.
Up in the suite there was a bottle of sparkling wine on ice and a little plate of biscuits, and the snacks and water were topped up every day without us asking. The concierge desk is the one to ask for a table you can't get yourself, or a private look round a gallery, so email them as soon as you've booked.
That desk was also the one place the warmth dipped for me. A couple of the concierge team barely looked up when we came over, which stood out in a hotel of only 82 rooms after the care we had everywhere else.
Rooms
We had the Serenissima Suite, right up under the roof, and I went straight to the window looking for the canal. There's no canal from up there. You look out over terracotta roofs and chimney pots to a tall brick bell tower, and the window only opens halfway, so you have to lean out to see much at all. The rooms that face the Grand Canal are a separate, dearer category.
Inside, it's a beautiful suite. You come into a sitting room with an orange velvet sofa, tall Murano glass lamps, a Persian rug over the old terrazzo floor and an antique writing desk with a Bang & Olufsen speaker on it. I put on some Bocelli and it suited the room perfectly. Past the dressing room, the bedroom has striped silk walls, old landscapes in gilt frames and a Murano chandelier under the sloping ceiling, and the bathroom is green-veined marble from floor to ceiling, with a deep tub under a skylight and Acqua di Parma by the basin.
The roof has its downsides. The wind got up at night and woke us, and the shower pressure was weak, which grated in a suite this pretty. The Deluxe and Venetian rooms look onto the courtyard or the rooftops too, and some are tight for the money, with antiques that can tip into clutter. There are only nine Landmark Grand Canal rooms, looking across to the Salute, so if the water at your window is why you're coming, book one early and treat that as the real price of staying here.
Food and drink
Breakfast is in Club del Doge, right on the Grand Canal, and I could happily have stayed all morning watching the water taxis and vaporetti churn past the Salute, with the odd gondola between them. There's a buffet of fresh juices, pastries, cold meats and fish, and the hot food comes from the menu, so order the eggs Royale. The waiters fuss over you in a way that felt a little Grand Budapest Hotel, and I loved it. If breakfast isn't in your rate it's about €55 a head, so choose a rate that includes it.
Dinner is in the same restaurant, under a carved wooden ceiling and a huge crystal chandelier, and the service was as polished as any I've had in Italy. The risotto was excellent and so was the tiramisu. The scallop tasted of nothing but salt, though, and the eel was far too salty. We paid about €120 each without wine, so I'd book one dinner here and eat out in the city the other nights.
Bar Longhi was where I was happiest. It's a small room of green velvet armchairs, mirrored walls and old paintings, and cocktails start at about €30. In winter the Gritti Terrace and the Riva Lounge are closed, so Longhi and Club del Doge were all we had. Come in summer and take a Bellini out to the veranda as the sun goes down behind the Salute.
Setting
The lobby is dark and gilded, with portraits watching you from the walls and light off the canal moving across the ceilings, and for me the building was the best part of the stay. The Pisani family remade this palazzo in 1475, Doge Andrea Gritti lived here from 1525, and it has been a hotel since 1895, last restored in 2013. On wet afternoons I liked the library lounge best, with its red sofas under a gilded beamed ceiling.
The hotel sits on Campo Santa Maria del Giglio, about five minutes' walk from Piazza San Marco, with the St. Regis a few doors along. It's much calmer than the stretch round the Danieli, where the crowds start the moment you step outside. From the hotel's canal front the Salute fills the whole view across the water, and I kept going back just to look at it.
There's no pool, the gym is small and the Sisley spa is small too. We came in November, when Venice was cold and wet and very quiet, and with both outdoor terraces shut you lose most of the canal life. I'd come between April and October, when breakfast moves outside and you can sit on the canal all day.
Value
The entry rooms cost about $1,100 to $1,800 a night in spring and autumn, more in summer, and peak dates can go past $2,500. That buys a room with no canal view, and the canal rooms cost more again. Getting here by water taxi from the airport takes about half an hour and costs around €150, and arriving at the hotel's own jetty is worth it.
The Danieli and the St. Regis, both a short walk away, usually cost less than the Gritti. The Aman and the Cipriani sit in the same bracket. The Cipriani has a pool and a garden out on the Giudecca, and the Aman is a Grand Canal palazzo further from St Mark's.
For a Landmark Grand Canal room in summer, with breakfast on the terrace, I think the Gritti earns its price. Paying this much to look at rooftops in the rain was harder to swallow, and I wouldn't do it again. Without a canal room, I'd look at the St. Regis first.
Who it suits
Book it if you want to walk to San Marco and sleep in a real Venetian palazzo, especially for a celebration you'll pay a canal room for. It's the wrong choice if you want a pool, a big modern room or a bargain, and I'd skip it in winter. For lighter, more modern rooms a few doors along, usually for less, book the St. Regis Venice. For a pool and a garden across the water, the Belmond Hotel Cipriani, and for a lagoon view at a fraction of the price, the Hotel Londra Palace.
