Macau has welcomed another glittering hotel to its shores with the launch of Palazzo Versace this month. Carolynne Dear took a tour
All the glamour on the Palazzo Versace Macau pool deck
If this isn't an opportunity to glam-up for the pool deck this summer, then we don't know what is. Palazzo Versace Macau opened this month and is amping the glam factor right up on Macau's Cotai strip. It's Asia’s inaugural Versace hotel and the first hotel in the region that's been designed by a fashion house. Globally, it follows in the footsteps of Versace branded hotels in Dubai and Australia.
The Macau property is part of the Grand Lisboa Palace Resort, which also counts Grand Lisboa Palace and fellow fashion hotel, the Karl Lagerfeld, amongst its offerings. Opulence is the order of the day at Palazzo Versace, as you would expect of a hotel created by one of Italy’s flashiest fashion designers, and no expense has been spared in wowing guests. The interior design, under the artistic supervision of Donatella Versace, takes its cue from Italian Palazzo Via Gesu 12, Versace’s atelier and home in Milan.
Italian mosaicists have laid more than six million enamel tiles throughout the hotel
In the lobby there is a huge mosaic mural reproduction of the house and gardens, painstakingly hand-laid using more than 80,000 enamel tiles. Mosaic has been used extensively throughout the hotel, designed and laid by Fantini Mosaici, fourth-generation Milanese artisans with whom the House of Versace has longstanding relations. In total, Fantini Mosaici’s mosaicists have installed more than six million hand-cut mosaic tesserae throughout the hotel and laid metres of terrazzo.
The Michelin-starred Don Alfonso 1890 has Macau's largest wine cellar
The Medusa head, the Versace House symbol, is repeated throughout the property lest you be under any misapprehension as to where you find yourself, from mosaic floor patterns and silverware, to carpets and chinaware. The Italian influence is complemented at this Versace property with Chinese dragons and chrysanthemum flowers in a nod to its location in Greater China. The huge chrysanthemum floor mosaic at the hotel’s spa is worth a photo stop.
The glamorous Versace spa
Corridors are hung with framed vintage Versace scarves and design sketches and the 112 rooms and suites scream fashion with bold and gold silk Versace bedspreads, bespoke upholsteries and Italian terrazzo flooring and mosaics (if you want to take a little Versace home with you, the homewares and linens are for sale in the hotel). The garden view rooms enjoy a lush panorama over the carefully manicured gardens and sparkling swimming pools that link the three properties.
Afternoon tea a La Scala
The two dining spaces live up to the opulent vibe. The pretty robin’s egg-blue La Scala del Palazzo features lavish velvet couches, silk cushions, Medusa-engraved cutlery and stunning Versace chinaware. I was served a beautifully presented light lunch of burrata salad and a warm gnocchi dish. The piece de resistance was the lavish chocolate mille feuille pudding. The distinctive colour-scheme, lavish furnishings and large, sunlit feature windows mean the space has quickly become a sought after Instagram spot in Macau.
The hotel also has a Michelin-starred restaurant, the family-owned Don Alfonso 1890, with private dining rooms, cocktail area, open kitchen and Macau’s largest wine cellar.
The lavish 27m indoor pool
But the facilities for which I would return are the stunning indoor and outdoor pools. The indoor pool is a generous 27m with a lavish mosaic dragon spread along its length and flanked by generously-sized loungers in which to sink between laps. Floor to ceiling glass windows on one side ensure the space is beautifully sunlit. Outside, the Romanesque outdoor pool has been glamorously decorated with turquoise and gold mosaics featuring the Versace Medusa, glittering in the midday sun. On a hot summer weekend this will surely be the pool deck at which to be seen.
Subtle is not a word that springs to mind when it comes to Palazzo Versace, but this is Macau after all and it’s a stunning newcomer with both style and substance in a city that, these days, trades unapologetically on its glitz.
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