Lake Como has a very established idea of what luxury looks like, a kind of old European grandeur it’s been selling, very successfully, for a long time. The brand new Lake Como EDITION is a different proposition entirely. In late April, our Executive Editor Ben Barna headed out for opening weekend to find out what that looks like.
THURSDAY, April 23, 2025
10:40 PM
For reasons I still don’t fully understand, I was upgraded to Emirates First Class, a step above business, and widely considered the most luxurious way to fly commercial in the world. I knew something was different when a flight attendant carried my luggage up the stairs of the double-decker A380, past a small waterfall, and into my suite. The space is big enough that there’s no overhead compartment—your luggage simply goes in the room with you. The suite itself does exactly what it’s supposed to do, which is make you forget you’re on a plane. The little brass lamp in the corner makes all the difference. There’s an onboard shower that requires advance booking, which I regret not doing, and a standing bar toward the back of the cabin. Having a drink at a bar on a plane has long been on my bucket list, and I check it off with a negroni and an espresso martini, in that order. Having an espresso drink around midnight on an overnight flight feels crazy, but I don’t really want to sleep. I make my way back to my suite for caviar service, and eventually pass out during All the President’s Men.
FRIDAY, April 24, 2026
2:01 PM
After a two-hour drive, I arrive at The Lake Como EDITION. The hotel is perched on the shore at Centro Lago, where the lake forks into two. The hotel itself sits inside a palazzo dating back to 1830. The interior, reimagined by Neri&Hu, looks more like what you’ve come to expect from an Edition property: high ceilings and clean lines, tactile materials, warm neutrals. Nothing fussy, nothing overdone. It feels like the setting of a party that’s waiting to happen. And that smell. If you’ve ever set foot inside an EDITION hotel, you know the one. Officially, it’s characterized by “robust black tea, earthy patchouli, cedarwood, and ambergris, accented with Sicilian bergamot and fig.” To me, it smells like Miami Art Basel 2014, the first time I ever encountered it in a simpler time.
2:13 PM
I’m escorted to my room on the fifth floor (the staff here is exceedingly attentive). Lake view, they said at check-in, which turns out to be an understatement. Through a pair of French doors with original ironwork, the whole panorama opens up at once: the lake, the mountains behind it, the picturesque town of Bellagio across the water. It’s the kind of view that makes you want to simultaneously take a million photos and put down your phone.
2:55 PM
I meet Bryce from Marriott’s Luxury Group by the pool for lunch and Aperol. The pool deck extends right over the lake, not a bad place to spend the afternoon. Being in this part of Europe when it’s warm and the sun is shining is synonymous with spritzing, and it’s the first thing we do. We also get some terrific pizza, a crudo, and a melon salad. There is no better way to take in this particular brand of beauty—the kind that led George Clooney to buy a villa a few miles down the lake—than an Aperol Spritz in the sun, watching the water do what the water does.
7:00 PM
The weekend’s official kickoff is a cocktail party in the EDITION lobby, anchored by a massive globe chandelier that reads more contemporary sculpture than lighting fixture. It’s a fashion and design crowd, the kind of room where everyone looks like they were coming from Salone, Milan’s annual design fair. That’s because a lot of them were. Juergen Teller is there (wearing his trademark hot pink) with his wife Dovile. So is the actor Joel Edgerton with his wife, Australian Vogue editor Christine Centenera. But the person everyone keeps mentioning is Martha Stewart, who flew in from Milan for the night with a plus four and is holding court at the bar like she’s just another guest and not one of the most influential Americans of the last half century.
8:34 PM
Dinner is upstairs at Renzo, a stunning indoor/outdoor restaurant overlooking the lake. (In Lake Como, if you’re not overlooking the water something has gone terribly wrong). The food at the EDITION is overseen by chef Mauro Colagreco, whose spot in France, Mirazur, has three Michelin stars. You can tell. Even for a group this size, which is typically where things fall apart, the food is exceptional. One of the people I sat next to was a woman who wouldn’t tell me why she was there. “It’s a surprise,” is how she put it, which I immediately clocked as code for performing later.
11:12 PM
I was right. After dinner, we were escorted to the penthouse, and there she was on the keyboard, singing slowly and beautifully. As endless trays of Negronis made their way around the room, most people drifted onto the balcony to smoke and talk. Even at night, even in the dark, the lake pulls you in.
SATURDAY, April 25, 2026
9:00 AM
I had an early spa appointment booked, but the weather was simply too perfect to spend 90 minutes inside. Everyone tells me the spa is unbelievable and I probably missed out. But in Italy, if you’re not spending your mornings working through several espresso drinks at a local cafe, possibly with a cheeky spritz, you need to reevaluate your life choices. A macchiato, two cappuccinos, and an Aperol Spritz for under 20 euros, which once again proves that we live in hell.
12:41 PM
Lunch is at Al Veluu, a homey, family-run institution, hand-picked by my EDITION hosts, perched on a hill with a panoramic view of the lake framed by villages and mountains. The table is set with the quiet confidence of a restaurant that knows the view is doing half the work. It’s almost aggressively picturesque, so much so that the food could have been completely average and this still would have counted as one of the best lunches of my life. Thankfully it’s spectacular—rustic, simple, the freshest ingredients, and crucially, light. Behind us a gentleman at the keyboard serenades us with location-appropriate selections including “Bamboleo” and “Marina,” and after a few glasses of white wine an impromptu dance party breaks out on the immaculate lawn.
3:38 PM
Back towards the EDITION, classic mahogany boats are waiting, the kind you recognize from Venice Film Festival premieres. Wine and champagne await us on board, and we drink it as we cruise around the lake and those iconic Como villas appearing and disappearing between cypresses. The whole thing feels embarrassingly pleasurable.
5:17 PM
Before dinner, it’s back to the hotel’s poolside terrace, the platonic ideal of an Aperol Spritz moment. So we drink several. It feels like an EDITION campaign come to life.
6:49 PM
During the cocktail hour before dinner, I find myself next to an older gentleman with a Yorkshire accent whose aura is a little unbothered, a little dry, and very warm. As we talk, I realize it’s John Pawson himself, the architect and designer whose minimalism-as-philosophy approach helped define the EDITION aesthetic when Ian Schrager brought him on to establish the brand’s signature look.
8:45 PM
Dinner tonight is at Cetino by Mauro Colagreco, a seafood-focused restaurant that draws on the lake for inspiration and ingredients, and his first in Italy. The six-course tasting menu is tight and focused. Branzino, trota, triglia, anchovies. The trout ravioli with dill sauce is probably the best bite I had all weekend.
11:36 PM
After dinner, it’s back to the hotel lobby for the official opening party, joined now by a contingent of chic Milanese who came up for the night. Like the evening before, the crowd skews fashion and hospitality—heavy on the black. But the biggest star of the room is Leonardo Di Vivo, the server working the cannoli station, who 24 hours earlier had been tagged on Instagram by Martha Stewart herself. I asked how many new followers he’d picked up since. “A lot,” he said, then filled a cannoli shell with cream and handed it to me.
