La Terrazza

La Terrazza is the gastronomic restaurant of the Belmond Hotel Splendido — the cliff-top Belle Époque palace built in 1901 as a private aristocratic villa, converted to a hotel in 1922, owned by the Orient-Express/Belmond group since 1985, and the most photographed luxury hotel in the Italian Riviera. The dining room sits on the original 1901 garden terrace, 150 metres above the Portofino harbour, with a 270-degree view of the harbour-mouth, the Piazzetta, and the open Ligurian Sea beyond.

Chef Corrado Corti runs a contemporary Mediterranean-Italian menu with deep regional sourcing. Signatures include a hand-rolled trofiette with Genovese pesto from the original 19th-century mortar-and-pestle preparation; a slow-cooked Ligurian rabbit with rosemary and Taggiasca olives; a wood-fired Mediterranean turbot with samphire and lemon confit; a Monterosso anchovy crudo with green olive and sea-fennel; the famous 'soufflé Splendido' that the pastry team has refined since the 1980s.

The wine list is one of the deepest cellars in Liguria — 1,400 references with a serious Tuscan and Piedmontese spine, deep verticals of Sassicaia and Barolo, a respectable Champagne section that runs to grower-producers, and a tightly chosen Ligurian Vermentino programme. Sommelier Filippo Pesci runs the floor and the pairing flight at €185 is heavily Italian-led.

The dining room and terrace together hold seventy-two covers — twenty-four in the indoor 1901 ballroom, forty-eight on the cliff-top terrace. The terrace is the experience: the most photographed dining setting in the Italian Riviera and the canonical Portofino sunset experience. Service is Belmond-grade — uniformed captains, choreographed plate-arrival, exact pacing — and the kitchen times the dessert course with the harbour-mouth sunset for diners booked on the terrace at the appropriate evening hour.

La Terrazza is the proposal-grade view-dining room in continental Europe — the cliff-top terrace 150 metres above the Portofino harbour is among the most photographed dinner views on earth, the Belmond Splendido pedigree settles any institutional question, and the kitchen's pacing accommodates a slow-moving evening. Brief Filippo three days ahead and ask for terrace-table 7 — the corner table at the western end of the terrace, with the most direct sunset aspect of the entire room.