Former Italian monastery turned glorious hotel gets a revamp

Thailand-based Minor Hotels has been on something of an expansion bender, especially in Europe where it acquired the Madrid-based NH Hotels a few years back, instantly adding more than 350 properties, primarily in Europe and South America to its portfolio in the process.

For hotel lovers that translates to good news, because not content to just acquire NH’s real estate and operational arrangements, Minor Hotels is also transforming many of its properties with top-to-toe renovations and new standards of service.

The latest example of this is a clifftop hotel on Italy’s Amalfi Coast which has been rebranded from an NH to join Minor’s luxury group Anantara.

The cliff-hugging Anantara Convento di Amalfi Grand Hotel.

The Anantara Convento di Amalfi Grand Hotel is situated for glorious sea views and is built around an 800-year old Cistercian monastery – historic remnants including ornate cloisters and there’s also an intact Baroque church in the complex. Many of the property’s 52 guest rooms and suites are in the monks’ quarters and bear original architecture including vaulted ceilings and some tiles.

In keeping with this history, gone is the noughties white-on-white decor of its NH predecessor. The Anantara Amalfi is filled with materials sourced from nature – wood, leather, natural fibres and metals, blended with the luxurious details for which Anantara is known in a serene colour palette and understated design.

Views from the terrace of a junior suite.

Picks of the bunch are the Suite Del Priore featuring frescoes above a four-poster bed and views of the cloisters, and the Suite Dell’Eremita, which sits separately amidst a lemon grove.

An Anantara Spa has been added and features three treatment rooms with sea views. The open-air gym and cliffside swimming pool have both been refurbished.

At restaurant Dei Cappucinni, executive chef Claudio Lanuto, who worked at Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck, has created a menu inspired by the site’s history, using ingredients grown in the kitchen garden.

The Anantara’s lemon grove and produce garden.

A further eatery, La Locanda della Canonica Pizzeria by Gino Sorbillo – Sorbillo being a famed Neapolitan pizza exponent with restaurants in Naples, Milan and New York – focuses on the flavours of the Campania region.

A private dining experience, Dining by Design involves personalised menus served by a private butler in a hotel setting of the guests’ choice.

Other add-on experiences include cooking classes, tours, a private helicopter flight over Positano and Sorrento and a romantic private cruise along the coast at sunset.

Anantara Convento di Amalfi Grand Hotel is the second Anantara property in Italy after the recent addition of Anantara Palazzo Naiadi Rome Hotel, and the brand’s eighth in Europe.

See anantara.com