You’ll have heard of the train. Now there’s a hotel
Impossibly glamorous, La Minerva is setting the standard for the famous Orient Express brand’s pivot into luxury lodgings. From the upcoming Fin Magazine travel special out on June 14.
Hugo Toro in the La Minerva suite. Jacopo Paglione
Hugo Toro can’t keep still. The 35-year-old Franco-Mexican interior designer shifts in his chair, swings his crossed leg and taps his fingers on the travertine surface of the elegant table between us – a table of his own design, created for the grand and gloriously pretty lounge in which we’re sipping verbena tea.
It’s a sunny morning in early April, and in less than a week, the Orient Express La Minerva hotel in Rome will open to the public, and Toro, who created every one of its interiors – from the subterranean hammam to the rooftop bar-restaurant – won’t stop firing on all cylinders until every aesthetic detail is perfect.
