Latest news with #OlgaPolizzi
Khaleej Times
5 days ago
- Business
- Khaleej Times
Food, luxury, or customer welfare: What truly defines great hospitality?
HOSPITALITY is in my blood. It has been in my family for generations now, starting with my grandfather who left his little village in the Italian hills for Scotland in 1911 and ended up with several establishments selling ice cream and tobacco. My father branched out into milk bars, the first one on London's Regent Street called Forte's. He bought the Waldorf, the first hotel he ever ran, in 1955, and ended up with Trusthouse Forte, one of the biggest hotel and catering companies in the world. My father was always keen that I had experience of his businesses. I did so throughout my school and university holidays, after which I joined the business full-time. My first job was at the Café Royal at 14 years old. I was in the cellars shifting crates of house wine which we bottled ourselves. Later I worked on the Waldorf reception, where I did wages and put cash into envelopes for staff, and also at Heathrow where we had a restaurant in one of the old terminals. As a result I was able to start my own business when Trusthouse Forte was sold in a hostile takeover. I now work in my business, Rocco Forte Hotels, with my three children and my sister, Olga Polizzi. We now have a Saudi partner in PIF. While we have a strong executive team, the involvement of the family members makes a big difference. The family aspect is the most important thing about our culture and philosophy, and the luxury service we aim to deliver. It's our name above the door and we really care about it. We have a passion for it and a belief in it and we care about everything that goes on in our hotels. I believe the people working with us in the business feel this directly – feel this passion and commitment. This is very important, because they're transmitting our philosophy direct to the customer. In family, you also look at things long term: you want to make the business stronger and more powerful for future generations. Our partner PIF also takes a long-term view. We teach our staff about the family history, the company history, the hotel history and about the city in which the hotel finds itself, which they can communicate back to the customer – and also have a greater sense of belonging to the organisation as a result. Each of my hotels has its own character but if you go to any one of my hotels you will find that same culture. I think that the Rocco Forte philosophy – that attention to detail and dedication to services – comes across everywhere. When it comes to luxury, the Hotel de Russie in Rome is not just iconic, it's the hotel in Rome. It opened in 2000 and is one I am particularly proud of. I also spend a lot of time at the Verdura in southern Sicily, where there had previously been no real tourism of this kind. I took on 500 acres with two kilometres of coastline and we have created something of outstanding beauty and quality. Our next opening will be The Carlton in Milan, that's due to open in November. It's in a great location, on Via della Spiga at the centre of the most fashionable district of Milan and the hotel will reflect the energy of what's a new buzzing European capital. Across our group, we pride ourselves on knowing our locations very well and we can provide unique experiences that most people can't. We see a great demand for extraordinary experiences and for years now we have been working on unique opportunities in partnership with the communities surrounding our hotels. We offer anything from trips up the Etna volcano in Sicily to private visits to the castles of Bavaria. We pride ourselves on being the leading hospitality experts in Europe and can tailor the most interesting visits off the beaten tracks. Food is also very important to what we offer. I don't like three-star Michelin restaurants in hotels. It's pompous and out of date. The food becomes more important than the customer. Our executive chef Fulvio Pierangelini, who was in fact a two-star Michelin chef, oversees all our Italian kitchens. His approach to food is different, using the highest quality, locally sourced produce. His pasta pomodoro basilico, for example, is incredibly simple but Romans come from all over to eat it because it's so special. Ultimately, we believe that delivering a luxury service means being true to our hotels, to our family heritage and to the cities where we operate. We're determined to be seen to be offering only the very best.
Daily Mail
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Olga Polizzi is still going strong at her family's expanding Forte hotels empire
Olga Polizzi says with a wry smile that she has always been defined in relation to her famous family – the Forte hotel dynasty. As a young woman, she was known as the daughter of patriarch Charles, who founded the empire. After that, she was the sister of Rocco Forte, who runs the luxury hotel group of that name, where she is head of design and a significant investor. More recently, her identity is as the mother of Alex Polizzi, of Channel 5 TV series The Hotel Inspector. 'I was my father's daughter, then my brother's sister and now I am my daughter's mother,' she laughs. Feminists might object to a woman being seen primarily through her relationship to others. But Polizzi is such a powerful force she can afford to take it lightly. She is director of design and deputy chair of Rocco Forte Hotels, which she helped create. She also has three hotels of her own: the Tresanton in Cornwall, the Endsleigh in Dartmoor, Devon, and The Star, in Alfriston, East Sussex, near her home. All this, as she approaches her 80th birthday – she exudes the vitality of a much younger woman. Charles Forte, who died in 2007 aged 98, emigrated to the UK as a child but remained a traditional Italian male. It seems never to have entered his head that he could have chosen a daughter to succeed him. He made Rocco chief executive of the Forte Group, then a FTSE 100 company, in 1983 and handed the chairmanship to his son a decade later. Did Polizzi ever wish she had been given the chance? 'Well, not really,' she says. 'I was never brought up like that and it wasn't on offer. It was Rocco and five sisters, so it was always the little prince. Rocco was always meant to follow on. 'We daughters were going to marry someone and they were going to look after us, that was it.' She did get married, in 1966, to Count Alessandro Polizzi, an Italian marquess, and the couple had two daughters, Alex and Charlotte. But in 1980 he died. 'I had these two small daughters and their father was killed in a car crash,' she says. 'Then my father said... you've got to work.' She joined the family business, on the building and design side. In the 1990s, she and her brother found themselves in the throes of a hostile takeover. Losing the family business to the predatory Granada leisure and TV group riles Polizzi even now, as it does Rocco. 'It was ghastly, I was so upset and so angry. It still rankles. I hated them,' she says, adding of the late boss of Granada who led the bid: 'I did an Italian incantation against Gerry Robinson.' Granada no longer exists, but her family business lives on in Rocco Forte Hotels, founded in the aftermath. Its high-end properties include Brown's in London's Mayfair, where I meet Polizzi, The Balmoral in Edinburgh and the Hotel de Russie in Rome. Family firms like theirs, she says, 'is how Italy keeps going'. 'The country is always nearly bust but these businesses carry on,' she says. 'Would the UK be stronger if there were more family firms? Yes, I really think so.' Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni is, in Polizzi's view, 'the only good leader in Europe'. As for British politics, she says: 'I was cross with the Conservatives, but I am even more cross with this lot.' Labour, she says, is 'kicking business to death' with the increase in employers' National Insurance contributions. And Chancellor Rachel Reeves' decision to scrap the winter fuel allowance for pensioners strikes her as insane. 'I was getting it – I pay a lot of tax so it was quite nice – but I would have been very happy to send it back,' she says. But of those who need it, she adds: 'To take it away from other people is just mad. Every Labour government has been a disaster and they have always left us on our knees.' The strength of her bond with Rocco was forged in childhood, when, as the two eldest, they were often thrown together. 'I sometimes have different ideas from Rocco, but I know who's the boss,' she says. 'I trust my brother absolutely and I bend over backwards to help him.' Do they disagree on style? 'On the whole, we have the same taste though he is a bit more glitzy,' she says. Her design credo is to combine luxury with comfort and a sense of place. Not for her the formulaic hotel chains, where rooms are the same anywhere in the world. 'I want people to wake up in our hotel in Florence and know they are in Florence. I try to use local artisans and materials,' she says. 'Everyone is copying us in terms of sense of place.' How does she reconcile retaining individuality with creating an atmosphere that is identifiably Rocco Forte? 'We want to keep the names of the hotels, because some are famous,' she says. 'Subliminally, I try to put in RF on the towels and bits and pieces, but it probably isn't enough. 'Rocco, because he is recognised a lot, doesn't believe people don't know all the hotels are ours. It matters, because if people like one, they will want to stay in another Rocco Forte.' There are openings planned in Milan, Naples and Sicily. Business was always part of family life. Polizzi says: 'When my father came back in the evening, he would put his finger on the front bell and not take it off until the door was open. We would hear ring, ring, ring and would have to rush downstairs to greet him. 'When we were a certain age we would have dinner with him and talk business. There was always a mass of people around him. He always had acolytes, everywhere.' She is less gregarious than her father or second husband, the writer Sir William Shawcross, whom she married in 1993. She says: 'William is very much a people person. I am not, though I don't want to use the word shy because it is a bit stupid at my age.' She would rather not draw attention to her approaching 80th. Like Rocco, who is slightly older, and was doing triathlons into his 60s, the years have been kind. 'We do have a lot of energy,' she muses. As for retirement: 'I've got a lovely family and a lovely husband, but I have never been a home bod. I'm so used to getting up and going to work. I'm just not a lady who lunches. 'Now I am older I would like to have more days off, but somehow or other it doesn't happen.'
Telegraph
13-04-2025
- Telegraph
The 10 best gardens in Cornwall
Even before the coming of the railway to Penzance in the 19th century, visitors were drawn to Cornwall to enjoy its coastline and its gardens – a combination unlike any other in Britain. Cornish gardens are unique. Temperatures are mild, light levels are strong and rainfall is high (sometimes too high). Especially on the south coast, deep valleys provide shelter from the prevailing winds and so – along with mineral-rich soil – plants thrive. Wealthy tin mine owners funded plant collecting expeditions and tender 'exotics' grew well in their new homes. Here are 10 of the best gardens in Cornwall, perfect for a day out in Britain's greatest holiday destination. For further Cornwall inspiration, see our guides to the region's best hotels, restaurants, pubs, beaches, cream teas, walks and how to plan the perfect holiday. Lamorran House Gardens Lamorran House Gardens has that sophisticated Riviera touch on Cornwall's south coast and is the plantsman owner's tribute to his wife's Italian heritage. Filled with luscious palms, tree ferns and rare azaleas interspersed with Mediterranean-style statuary, cupolas and fountains, Lamorran has stupendous views over Falmouth Bay. The garden is meticulously maintained with i giardini segreti hidden amidst raked gravel paths wandering up and down its hillside. Insider tip: Close by is Olga Polizzi's stylish Tresanton Hotel. Ideal for lunch or a weekend away. Trebah Garden A spectacular wooded valley filled with wonderful plants and year-round colour leads down to a private beach. In summer follow the gunnera tunnel under the plants' 'giant rhubarb' leaves or explore the Bamboozle, where the spectacular Phyllostachys edulis can grow at more than 20cm every day. Dog-friendly and perfect for families, with children's trails and adventure areas, there's also a fully-accessible Court Garden and popular cafe. Insider tip: Combine a visit to Trebah with another – the neighbouring Glendurgan Garden, owned by the National Trust. Penjerrick Garden There's no entrance desk, no guidebook, no cafe, no car park and no lavatories at Penjerrick, but there is the most extraordinary, private 'undiscovered' valley garden filled with rare plant treasures. Once owned by a Quaker family of Falmouth ship agents it's stocked with giant Californian redwoods, towering ancient rhododendrons, and with giant bamboo and moss-covered tree ferns around its lakes. Insider tip: What paths there are can be wet and muddy and you'll be ducking beneath branches and maybe squeezing past fallen tree trunks, so be prepared. Contact: How much does it cost? Entrance is by donation. Caerhays Castle and Gardens Generations of the Williams family have been involved in Cornish horticulture at Caerhays. J.C. Williams (1861 to 1939) was an expert hybridiser of both daffodils and camellias (the famous 'Williamsii' strain bears his name). The present owner, Charles Williams, is a global authority on magnolias. The garden opens in winter and spring when these plants' flowers are at their best. Insider tip: Take a look at – started in a leather-bound book in 1897 but now online – a daily record of life in the garden. Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens Once cultivated by the monks who lived on nearby St Michael's Mount, Tremenheere now grows spectacular plants including collections of agaves, grass trees and bamboo. What makes this garden unique, though, is the placing of internationally important pieces of cutting-edge sculpture and artwork amongst the planted landscape. A 'Skyspace' by James Turrell, alongside over 50 pieces by Penny Saunders, Shaika Al Mazrou and others give it a contemporary vibe. Insider tip: Visit the Skyspace at dusk for a magical view of clouds and changing light through its open roof. The Lost Gardens of Heligan The romantic story of an abandoned Edwardian estate, rediscovered by Sir Tim Smit, still resonates. The walled vegetable garden, growing heritage crops using traditional methods, is straight out of Tales of Peter Rabbit, but there's also The Jungle – a valley full of exotic palms, bananas and tree ferns – to explore, and the Pleasure Gardens in which to stroll and relax. Insider tip: Seek out the poignant graffiti signatures of the garden apprentices on the old bothy wall, written in 1914 before they enlisted for the First World War, never to return. Contact: How much does it cost? £28 St Just In Roseland churchyard An ancient granite church is surrounded by a lushly planted two-hectare garden on the shores of a beautiful coastal creek. Filled with palms and camellias, in the spring a carpet of primroses forms a backdrop to the bamboo, gunnera, and fuschia which also grow here in an atmosphere of peace and tranquillity. Insider tip: Instagrammers should visit at high tide to get the best shots of the church and the planting reflected in the still waters of the creek. Contact: TR2 5JD; Parking nearby. How much does it cost? Free entry Minack Theatre Garden Could this be the most spectacularly situated garden in the UK? It clings precariously to the side of a granite cliff high above the theatre's stage, but nevertheless its clever gardeners manage to grow fabulous South African proteas along with tender aeoniums, aloes and cobalt-coloured agapanthus. Leucospermum tumbling down the rock faces provides splashes of intense colour. Vertiginous steps and narrow paths weave between the planting beds so wheelchair access is only to the top terraces. Insider tip: Booking throughout the year is recommended, but in summer it's essential. Tresco Abbey Garden Beyond Lands End lie the spectacular Isles of Scilly. Tresco's Abbey Garden grows plants which simply don't grow anywhere else in the UK. Towering Phoenix caneriensis, South African aloes, rare proteas and Californian ceanothus along with a jewelled Mediterranean Garden, a shell gazebo at its centre, are just some of its highlights. Insider tip: Forget the stomach-churning ferry-and-boat option; to travel to Tresco take a direct helicopter from Penzance ( Barbara Hepworth Sculpture Garden Affiliated to Tate St Ives this is a tiny, secret oasis of calm in the middle of bustling bucket-and-spade St Ives. Tender Geranium maderense and potted spiky succulents bloom in Dame Barbara Hepworth's former workshop while, outside, her iconic sculptures seem to change form as the sunlight filters through the trees and shrubs she chose and planted. Insider tip: Parking in St Ives is a nightmare; instead take the tiny train from St Erth which travels alongside the sand dunes and the sea into town. Contact: How much does it cost? £8 *All ticket prices are single, adult, standard entry. How we choose Every garden in this curated list has been tried and tested by our destination expert, to provide you with their insider perspective. We cover a range of budgets and styles, from church grounds to botanical gardens – to best suit every type of traveller. We update this list regularly to keep up with the latest openings and provide up to date recommendations. About our expert Tim Hubbard has gardened in Cornwall for over 40 years and is the author of 'Secret Gardens of Cornwall' and 'The Great Gardens of Cornwall'.
