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A Florentine Palazzo Where You Live Like a Local — With a Private Chef

By Julie — Rescue Diver, 1,500+ dives, 135 countries

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La Réserve makes its Italian debut in October 2026 — six apartments inside a frescoed 15th-century palazzo on Via Santo Spirito, with concierges, housekeepers and private chefs attached.

Every visitor to Florence eventually has the same thought, usually around the third morning: what would it be like to actually live here? The city’s grand hotels can’t answer that question — their whole vocabulary is the lobby, the concierge desk, the breakfast room. This October, Michel Reybier’s La Réserve Firenze arrives on Via Santo Spirito with a different vocabulary entirely: a 15th-century palazzo in the Oltrarno, six apartments behind its frescoed walls, and no hotel in the conventional sense at all.

La Réserve Firenze: Key Facts

  • Opening: October 2026 — La Réserve’s Italian debut
  • Location: Via Santo Spirito, Oltrarno, Florence — some apartments with views across the city and the Arno
  • Keys: six private apartments in one, two and three-bedroom configurations, set within the palazzo’s frescoed interiors
  • Facilities: gym, library, lounge and a rooftop terrace
  • Service: full palace-hotel service — concierges, housekeeping, personal chefs, full hotel kitchens
  • Partnership: Michel Reybier Hospitality with owners Gregory and Olivia Marciano
  • Stay length: designed for anything from a few days to a few weeks
Lobby of La Réserve Firenze with antique tapestry, Florence
Photo © La Réserve Firenze

Not a Hotel, Not an Apartment — Both

The apartment-with-palace-service model is quietly becoming the most interesting category in European city luxury, and six keys is where it works best: the palazzo never feels like a property, because it isn’t one. Three-bedroom configurations and full kitchens change the arithmetic of a Florence trip — a family settles in for a fortnight instead of a weekend, the personal chef cooks in the apartment while the Ponte Vecchio empties of day-trippers, and the concierge, housekeeper and rooftop terrace do the rest. La Réserve has run this playbook for years in Geneva, Zurich and Paris; the Marciano partnership plants it, for the first time, inside a Renaissance building.

Apartment interior beneath the palazzo's painted beamed ceiling at La Réserve Firenze, Florence
Photo © La Réserve Firenze

Where It Sits

Via Santo Spirito runs through the Oltrarno’s artisan quarter, where leather workshops, frame gilders and furniture restorers still keep the hours their grandfathers kept, a few minutes’ walk from the Ponte Vecchio and Palazzo Pitti. It is the part of Florence where Florentines actually live — which stops being a travel-writing cliché and becomes a practical fact when the product you’re buying is residence itself. For the Tuscan counterpoint an hour outside the city, see my review of Castelfalfi, which was not what I expected.

For more of this site’s European city coverage, see the Nobu Hotel Madrid opening and the Marseille luxury hotels guide.

Tip: six apartments across an entire palazzo means buyouts will be on the table — for a family group or a milestone birthday, ask about taking the whole building rather than booking two apartments separately.

What It Will Cost

Rates were not published at announcement; on La Réserve’s pricing in Paris and Geneva, expect entry rates well into four figures per night, with weekly rates likely to carry a discount given the extended-stay positioning. The palazzo isn’t listed with any of the booking platforms I use yet, so there is nothing to compare on price until it opens — I’ll add live rates here as soon as it is bookable.

Rooftop terrace with views over the Florence rooftops at La Réserve Firenze
Photo © La Réserve Firenze

This preview is based on official announcements — I haven’t stayed yet. Read more about how I review or visit my Work With Me page.

Disclosure: this article contains affiliate links. If you book through them, I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Read my full disclosure policy.

My Top Travel Tips

  1. To find the best hotel price, I always compare the same room on Booking.com, Trip.com, Expedia and Vio.com before booking. No platform is always the cheapest — Trip.com often wins on Asia, Expedia on flight-and-hotel packages, and Vio.com is the new booking platform with consistently lower prices. I was sceptical the first time I used it, but it worked and saved me 20%. The five-minute check regularly saves 10–20% on the same stay.
  2. For flights, I compare on Aviasales. It shows the lowest fares from reliable agencies with no added fees or markups, and its flexible-date search will tell you when flying a few days either side costs less.
  3. I book tours and experiences with GetYourGuide for the 24-hour free cancellation, check Viator when it doesn't have what I want, and read the newest reviews on Tripadvisor before booking anything.
  4. Never travel without insurance. VisitorsCoverage compares policies for your specific trip — and if you dive, confirm the policy actually covers it.
  5. For airport lounge access, sign up for Priority Pass — over 1,300 lounges worldwide, and it pays for itself in two trips.
  6. Sort your SIM before you fly. I install an Airalo eSIM before departure — data plans for over 200 countries, set up in minutes, and no roaming bill waiting for you when you land.

The full strategy is in my guide to finding hotel and flight deals without sacrificing luxury.

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