What it’s like to stay at The White Lotus hotel
The ritzy Sicilian lodgings have long been frequented by A-listers. We step inside and discover what the fuss is about.
San Domenico Palace, Taormina, a Four Seasons Hotel is quite the mouthful when you’re simply trying to induce envy. Luckily, popular culture has provided a shortcut. “I’m staying,” I tell anyone who’ll listen, “at The White Lotus season two hotel.”
Everyone reacts as I had hoped. The 111-guestroom Sicilian hotel of your dreams, conjured from a historic convent clinging to a clifftop overlooking the Ionian Sea, is the epitome of la dolce vita, even from a distance. I first spy the landmark, the colour of melon granita, from Taormina’s sea-level train station. It’s tantalisingly close as the crow flies but reaching the entrance requires a slow, winding taxi ride up to the hilltop town centre.
Waiting for me is the hotel’s art concierge, Margaret Raneri. After gulping a citrusy welcome drink (so refreshing I request another upon check-out), we start ticking off the property’s striking features. Sensitive renovations, completed in 2021 when the luxury brand took over the hotel (and while the White Lotus cast and crew stayed in-house), revealed delights such as tiny inscriptions scratched into old stone columns. A thrilling rethink of the interior design now means some 500-plus historic and contemporary artworks and furniture pieces are juxtaposed in corners, cloisters and corridors as though an age gap of centuries doesn’t matter.
Raneri details the property’s extraordinary history, which includes the former convent’s last remaining Dominican monk suddenly unveiling a secret will to thwart government plans to seize the asset. In doing so, Raneri also reveals much about Sicily itself. “It’s a country within a country,” she says. “We’ve only been Italian for 170 years.”
If Sicily is its own entire world, this hotel – where birds wheel past your room’s terrace at eye level – is even more so. Thanks to a forecast alerting me that sunshine will give way to clouds during my two-night stay, pool time becomes my first priority. After wandering through formal gardens heaving with citrus trees and bright bursts of bougainvillea to find the infinity pool-with-a-view, I discover a spare lounger at one end allows me to position both the pool and Mount Etna in the same frame. While completing a few lazy laps, I marvel at the active volcano, which during my stay looks like it’s lightly puffing on a sigaretta. In more recent weeks, it’s been smoking a fat cigar, spewing lava and ash skywards.
Mount Etna looms large gastronomically, too. The breakfast buffet includes glass bowls cradling hazelnuts nurtured on its sun-drenched slopes; at laidback poolside restaurant Anciovi, the wine list is peppered with drops from Etna vineyards. Classic Sicilian dishes, too, are presented at every turn. On the a la carte brekky menu, a Trinacria (the three-legged symbol of Sicily) highlights island specialties, such as arancino alla norma (rice ball stuffed with eggplant, tomato and ricotta), a savoury pancake with Sicilian caprino cheese, and porridge enhanced with saffron, berries and honey.
Local and seasonal ingredients shine as well at in-house Michelin-starred fine-diner Principe Cerami, where even my handbag receives its own stylish red seat. Chef Massimo Mantarro, born and raised next door to Etna, clearly enjoys a good reveal – like when you break through a sheet of silver leaf crowning a basil-green squid risotto to unearth a surprise (hello black squid ink). There’s humour too, such as the artful “lemon slice” topping a confection of pistachio and coffee.
It takes a full day to tear myself away from hotel nirvana to explore the town, which is equally charming. I trail down narrow alleyways, drawn by the sound of live music and happy chatter, and window-shop the haute boutiques lining Corso Umberto, the pedestrianised main thoroughfare. Kids kick a soccer ball around the town’s belvedere (lookout), which offers the same glittering ocean views as my terrace. I could visit the ancient Greek theatre that adorns so many souvenirs but instead find a spot offering a high-angled peep at Isola Bella, a pretty islet connected to the mainland at low tide by a whisker of sand.
The weather isn’t quite warm enough for paddling in the ocean but temperature proves irrelevant when it comes to indulging in a frozen treat. Bam Bar is an institution – and nowadays an Instagram favourite – for its seasonal granitas topped with whipped cream into which you dip a chunk of warm brioche. My breakfast comprises a two-layer combo of coffee and almond but I could have chosen lemon, strawberry, raspberry or orange. As the day wears on, another two flavours – kiwi and melon – are added to the board.
Back at the hotel, I tuck into a second breakfast (a granita cart is parked in a corner here) and try not to count down my last hours. Instead, I think of all the celebrities who have wafted through the doors since it became, with the addition of a second wing, a grand hotel in 1896: Oscar Wilde, Thomas Mann, DH Lawrence, Greta Garbo, Sophia Loren, Audrey Hepburn, Princess Margaret and others. In 1967, during their first marriage, Elizabeth Taylor fought with Richard Burton on the terrace of their suite, with Taylor reportedly breaking a mandolin over his head.
High drama and this hotel go hand in hand. White Lotus creator Mike White has said he chose the Sicilian location partly because of its “operatic and tragic vibes”, but the only tragedy for me is saying goodbye (fade to squid-ink black, roll closing credits).
In the know
San Domenico Palace, Taormina, a Four Seasons Hotel is perched on Taormina’s clifftop, a 10 to 15-minute taxi ride from the train station. Taormina is an hour’s drive from Sicily’s busiest airport, Catania-Fontanarossa.
Katrina Lobley was a guest of the hotel and travelled to Taormina with Rail Europe.
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