The vast lobby, with its galleries and stone staircases, used to be the palazzo’s internal courtyard; if you didn’t know it was old, you could be forgiven for thinking it the fantasy of a well-traveled nineteenth-century robber baron. Along with the rest of the hotel, they’d been redone by the French designer Jacques Garcia, the author of some of our very favorite hotel décors, including at the Metropole in Monte Carlo and the Costes in Paris. Waiter suggested this approach and indeed, tried to stop the people at the next table from over ordering.
International Travel: Opera, Luxurious Lodging and Great Food in Venice, Italy