The catch at ROMEO Roma

The hotel's own pages give the days. Il Ristorante Alain Ducasse Roma serves dinner only, Tuesday to Saturday from 7.30pm to 10pm, Smart Elegant dress code, its own summer menu at 305 euros for seven courses, 280 for five and 220 for two courses and a dessert, plus a voluntary 10 per cent for the staff. La Terrazza, the Krug bar on the top floor over Piazza del Popolo, opens Thursday to Sunday from 6pm to midnight and not otherwise. Arrive on a Monday and the first night has neither.

What runs every day is Il Cortile in the garden, bar from 10.30am to midnight, lunch 12.30 to 3, dinner 7.30 to 10.30, and Il Bar off the lobby from 11am to midnight, both for guests only, and the garden is open to the sky.

The hotel's own pages carry the line on each outlet: Il Cortile and Il Bar only for hotel guests, La Terrazza exclusively for hotel guests, the pool, the spa and the 24-hour gym the same. Apart from the aperitivo below, only Il Ristorante takes outside bookings, through OpenTable, so at other times you cannot look round the place before booking it or bring friends up to the roof.

That policy is where the worst reviews come from. Guests rate the location well above the service and the value; the reviews split between top and bottom marks with nothing between, and several of the lowest are from people who say they were turned away at the door. From those who stayed, the recurring complaint is the quiet itself: guests report a building that feels cold and oddly empty for a Rome five-star. One crack: the offers page opens La Terrazza to the public on Thursdays and Sundays from 5pm to 8pm for an aperitivo, so those evenings the roof is not yours alone.

For 9 to 11 February 2027, a Deluxe was 1,600 euros a night best available, 1,440 prepaid and 1,360 on the two-night rate; for 20 to 22 April 2027 the three were 1,900, 1,710 and 1,615, breakfast and the 10 per cent sales tax included. Two things are missing. The best available rate carries, in its small print, a discretionary 5 per cent service charge for the staff, excluded from the total shown and paid at checkout, so 1,600 becomes 1,680. And the city tax is extra: the hotel's website quotes it at 6 euros a person a night, the city's three-star figure, when a five-star charges 10, as our Rome facts page sets out; budget for 10.

Nor is the best available rate the flexible one: it carries the two-night rate's deadline, 2pm two days before arrival, and its one edge is single nights. The prepaid rate is non-refundable from booking. Check-out is 11am, and the hotel publishes no parking.

Spa and pool access comes with some rates and not others, so check what yours includes. Where it is included, the offers page and the fuller rate description say what the spa line means: 2-hours SPA access. The Sisley Paris spa is open daily from 10am to 8pm, guests only, and its own price list puts facials at 210 euros for 50 minutes and 320 for 80, body treatments at 170 and 260, a manicure at 80 and a pedicure at 100; a spa afternoon is not in the rate. The pool, the glass floor over the excavation, has two sets of hours: 10am to 8pm on its own page, 9am to 7pm in the group policy, and under-12s must be accompanied.

The small print goes on: children from 13 pay as adults, no food or drink from outside, and dinner asks for no shorts, men's sleeveless shirts, t-shirts or flip flops.

The photograph everyone has seen is a suite under a painted ceiling. The hotel's own pages call the frescoes 16th century, the architects who uncovered them say 17th, and either way they exist in three categories only: the Fresco Junior Suite, the Fresco Suite and the Fresco Grand Suite, five suites in a hotel of 74. Below them the Deluxe, up to 41 square metres in walnut, and the Premier, up to 50 in ebony, are good rooms with no historic fabric in them, and the Superior, up to 37 with a walk-in shower, one sink and no bath, is not always on sale.