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When you think of Lake Como, what do you see? Boat rides down a beautifully blue lake? George Clooney’s house? That sparkling floating pool with orange and white umbrellas you always see in photos?
That floating pool belongs to Grand Hotel Tremezzo in Lake Como, and it is an exquisite place to stay while you are exploring the gorgeous area of Lake Como. Read on for an in-depth review of our stay to see if the Grand is the hotel for you on your next Lake Como trip.
Grand Hotel Tremezzo in Lake Como, Italy
The Property:
Grand Hotel Tremezzo is located on the shores of a little town called Tremezzo, directly across the lake from Bellagio. You’ll find Villa Carlotta (a botanical garden and museum) a four minute walk away, as well as two ferry stops (for Villa Carlotta and Tremezzo) a two or four minute walk away, respectively, so you can easily get to where you need to go if you choose to explore Tremezzo and neighboring towns around the lake.
Grand Hotel Tremezzo is indeed grand. It gives off vibes reminiscent of the movie The Grand Budapest Hotel, and the grounds are gorgeous. There are three pools – one of which is that gorgeous floating pool you see in photos, a few places to dine, a private beach, and luxurious rooms to stay in.
There are multiple ways to get to the Grand Hotel Tremezzo, making it easy to reach. The hotel is located about 80 km (50 miles) away from Milan’s airports MXP and LIN so you can drive, or take the train from Milan to Como, and hop on the ferry to Tremezzo. The hotel can also arrange car transfers for you (either from Milan or the Como train station).
View of Grand Hotel Tremezzo from the floating pool.
The Room(s):
Grand Hotel Tremezzo offers a mix of park view and lake view rooms (they’re offered as ‘prestige’ or ‘deluxe’ rooms – more on that later), as well as suites, rooftop suites, and a villa to rent.
If you’re just looking at the rooms and want a stunning view of the lake, make sure to book the Lake View rooms.
We had booked one night in the Park View Prestige Room, and another night in the Lake View Prestige Room. On arrival, we were lucky enough to have both rooms upgraded so we got to spend a night in both the Lake View Prestige Room and the Lake View View Deluxe room.
Both these Lake View Prestige and Deluxe rooms obviously offered gorgeous lake views, but had a few differences (aside from price):
The Deluxe rooms is a little bit larger than the Prestige, and that square footage is stretched across the whole room – the bathrooms have double sinks vs one sink in the Prestige, and there’s a bit more space for lounging in the main room. Both types of rooms are absolutely gorgeous so you really can’t go wrong, but if you’re looking for a bit more space and windows, choose the Deluxe.
Lake View Deluxe room at the Grand Hotel Tremezzo.
General booking room tip: When placing your reservation, ask for a room on a higher floor if available. This will help give you those gorgeous views, and you’ll be farther from street traffic.
View from the Lake View Deluxe room at Grand Hotel Tremezzo.
The Food:
Breakfast at the hotel is a must. Not only because it’s included in your stay, but because the offerings are delicious and the seating with a view of the lake can’t be beat.
Breakfast is set up like a buffet in what seems like a vast ballroom, and you’ll find hotel staff on hand ready to help serve you whatever you’d like from the buffet.
As far as the actual food goes, there’s a wide variety to choose from. There are multiples kinds of local cheeses and meats, as well as hard- and soft-boiled eggs options (as in you can choose from a 3-minute boiled egg, or a 6- or 9- minute boiled egg). You’ll also find different types of pastries, breads, cookies, fruit, and chocolates.
A plate from the breakfast buffet at Grand Hotel Tremezzo
There are a total of five bars/restaurants that you can dine at on the property, all offering a range of food:
Lunch at Giacomo al Lago, at Grand Hotel Tremezzo
The Amenities:
You can easily spend a day exploring the grounds of the Grand Hotel Tremezzo itself – from the three pools, the private beach, the spa, the gardens, and the tennis court.
A view of the Flowers Pool at Grand Hotel Tremezzo.
If you’re in search of something more, the concierge team will happily set up excursions for you (including cooking classes, walks and more).
Read more on our new website: The Tasteful Traveler
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Benu opened in San Francisco in 2010, and was the first restaurant in SF to receive 3 Michelin Stars in 2014. They have maintained their 3 stars since, and it’s easy to see why.
Chef Corey Lee helms this restaurant and spins up a tasting menu that incorporates delicate but divine flavors using local produce. Everything on their dinner menu is stunning – and their ‘small delicacies’ are truly small delicacies. So let’s get into it.
The top notes of things you should know:
Now let’s dive into the full experience:
The menu in December 2022 started off with “small delicacies” which consisted of nine individual small bites. The first dish to hit our table was a thousand year old quail egg which was a stunning sight just with the colors alone. This dish was a great starter though and had some really lovely complex flavors to kick the meal off.
Continuing the small delicacy section was this stuffed mussel with glass noodles and fine vegetables. This was an outstanding bite, both in taste and presentation!
A jellyfish and fine vegetable salad with hot mustard were served next. Again, the flavors here were so nice and reminiscent of the mustard used in the Korean dish mul-naeng myun (cold noodles in a cold broth), and the bowl used to serve this was gorgeous.
Up next was a cod milt in a bath of three mustards. Again with the impeccable presentation and colors. This was a delightful dish.
And then we had a truly perfect shrimp tempura dusted with pine needles.
A flowering tofu dish came out next, and it was really a beautiful tofu that looked like a flowering sea anemone.
Onto the seventh small delicacy – crispy frog leg sautéed with chili. Hidden beneath all those chilis was an incredibly crispy frog leg with a punchy, delicious flavor. I don’t think I’ve ever had frog legs before, but this is a frog leg I would eat again and again.
The acorn taco was next. And this was filled with iberico ham and black truffle shavings. Need I say more? This was melt-in-your-mouth delicious.
Wrapping up the “small delicacies” section was bread and orange blossom infused honey butter.
The last starter, separate from the “small delicacies” above, was the lobster xiao long bao with homemade soy sauce and vinegar. This was perfect in every way, and a great finish to the starters section of the menu.
All the starters acted as a fun – and not too filling – entry point and introduction into the flavors before you get into the rest of the meal.
Following these starters was the next course which was a choice between three options. I went with the short grain rice with raw spot prawn and pollock roe, sesame leaf, pickled salsify, and rock seaweed.
The other two options were 1) charcoal noodles with sauteed black bean sauce, giant squid, fresh and dried caviar, and 2) jasmine rice cooked in gamasot (min for 2) with monkfish liver sausage, trout roe, calabash gourd.
The next course was another option between three. You could choose between 1) mulwhe with iced water, kimchi broth, cured fluke, sea urchin, oysters, radish, seasame eaf, seaweed, 2) whole abalone roasted in butter, potato, red cabbage, green peppercorn sauce, or 3) roast turbot in a delicate fish broth with minari, sunchoke, picked white beets and beet glaze.
For the final of the main courses, you finish with the meat course. Here too, you were able to choose between three dishes. I went with the barbecued quail with celery root and branch, house xo, black truffle. (The other two choices were a coastal pré salé lamb ribeye, and a steamed pork belly slices and charcoal-grilled pork cheek).
I was sold on the quail when the waiter mentioned the chef had been working with the purveyor of the quail for over 20 years, and the purveyor Brent Wolfe, has been raising quails since 1983. He’s dedicated to raising the best quail and it shows.
The whole barbecued quail was presented before your meal and accoutrements come out. The beautiful quail, and the smoky aroma that came with it, spoke for itself. I still think about how perfectly this quail was cooked.
This dish was also fun as it came with a black truffle bao so you could turn the quail into a quail bao sandwich. (However, the black truffle sauce and bao came out mid-way through finishing the quail. Think that might’ve just been a fluke for me as it should be presented with the rest of the meal at the same time?). Regardless, still a delicious dish!
Finally, two desserts to finish! The first one served was omija and olive oil. This one hit a lot of flavor notes as you enjoyed it – from savory, to slightly salty and bitter, to sweet. I’ve never had anything like it and wasn’t sure how to feel about it at first, but it grows on you and is really delicious experience and great way to start wrapping up the meal.
Another unassuming but show stopping dessert described as “milk pudding with salt, smoke, peat” came to the table afterwards. And this was absolutely delicious. The caramel had a sweet, smoky flavor and I wouldn’t mind if it was just poured on any other dessert I’ve ever had.
The meal rounds out with a pine needle sikhye. Sikhye is a sweet Korean drink made from malt and rice. It’s sweet and tasty by itself, but I’ve never had it flavored in any way or even steeped with pine needles, and served with some frozen icy sikhye. This was a refreshing finish to the meal (and continues the theme of bright green things in this meal, although I would’ve loved to finish on something warm in the midst of winter).
All in all, Benu is a must-visit in San Francisco if you’re in the mood for a one-of-a-kind experience when it comes to flavors and dishes.
You can make reservations on Tock. Reservations are released 30 days in advance at 10am PT. I’d recommend booking as soon as that reservation window opens at 10am in order to get the date/time you prefer (especially if it’s for a Friday/weekend at 5:30pm).
Let me know if you’ve been to Benu in your comments with your thoughts, or if you’re planning to go!
Note that this post has been shortened and is from our experience in late 2021. We’ve revisited Harbor House Inn once more since, and have written about both experiences in our full post on The Tasteful Traveler. Read it here.
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I will just start this post by saying that I didn’t really want to write about this stay because I kind of wanted to keep The Harbor House Inn a secret. But here we are – mostly because I’ve finally accepted sharing this, and because the chef and Inn are getting more visibility nowadays (hello second Michelin star)! So here we go.
The Property:
The Harbor House Inn is perched on the edge of the Mendocino coast with gorgeous views of the Pacific Ocean in a little town named Elk. Long story short, it is an amazing place to escape to if you’re looking to disconnect and be surrounded by beautiful redwood trees, the ocean and fresh air.
In addition to disconnecting, you will also have beautiful, local and very delicious food here. The Harbor House Inn also hosts a Michelin-starred restaurant by Chef Matthew Kammerer (they just received two michelin stars in 2021) where you can enjoy lunch and dinner, and breakfast is included with your stay.
The Inn has 6 traditional rooms in the main house, and 5 standalone cottages for added privacy. The rooms in the main house feature either a garden view or an ocean view, and the cottages have a private patio. Modern beach cozy describes the aesthetic well – think white crisp sheets, grays, blue and an overall warmth so your stay feels home-y.
Outside of the rooms, there’s a restaurant, a beautiful outdoor space that you can fully enjoy and watch the sunset from, and a private cove that you can access via a path of stairs. You’ll also find onsite gardens and a chicken coop.
The Food:
My favorite part of any trip (and arguably the most important, for me anyway): the food. And the food at Harbor House Inn is beautiful, hyper-local and extremely delicious. Chef Matthew Kammerer has a way of bringing together stunning dishes that just drop you right into the local area so you can really experience the Mendocino coast at its fullest. You’ll be enjoying the stunning view while eating seaweed bread and butter (made with the seaweed that came right off the Inn’s private cove). The ingredients are pure and the flavors are delightful.
So let’s start with dinner. The Harbor House Inn has a restaurant with stunning views of the Pacific coastline. Dinner here is a seasonal tasting menu that ranges from 8-12 courses and requires a reservation through Tock.
Unfortunately, we weren’t able to eat in the restaurant at the time due to Covid indoor dining restrictions, but we did enjoy their in-room dinner service which they also regularly offer should you want to enjoy dinner privately. This in-room service has the same attention to detail as the restaurant service. The only difference is that it’s a bit more casual and served family style rather than as a tasting menu.
The in-room dinner service for us included nine dishes, some of which were: seaweed sourdough with cultured butter, a local rice porridge with turnips and beech mushrooms, yellowtail rockfish with hatcho miso and avocado oil, and a bay nut ice cream.
Moving onto breakfast, which is an absolute treat at the Harbor House Inn. When you check in, you’ll be asked to fill out a form regarding some breakfast choices (tea versus coffee, etc.). The next morning, your breakfast will be delivered to your door on a tray and it is one of the most gorgeous breakfasts you will see. Take the tray and enjoy it inside by your fireplace (if your room has one) or on your private deck if you’re staying in one of the cottages.
You can expect the same care with your breakfast that you receive for dinner. The seaweed bread and cultured butter made a reappearance at our breakfast which I really don’t think you can get enough of.
Overall:
The Harbor House Inn is set in a beautiful location that only the California coast can provide, and makes for a stunning getaway to enjoy the fresh air, disconnect and indulge in one-of-a-kind food.
Happy traveling!
Japan is nothing short of a wonderland. The food is excellent, the cities are extremely clean and there’s so much to see and do!
If you’re planning a trip to Japan, or even thinking about visiting, below are 8 travel tips that I found the most helpful on a recent trip to the country.
1. Pocket Wi-Fi will be your best purchase. Before you take off on your flight, order a pocket wi-fi and pick it up at the airport once you land in Japan. Pocket wi-fi is extremely helpful because it’s portable, runs on battery, and lets you access wi-fi from your mobile devices almost anywhere. This is great when you’re trying to navigate a completely new city (and country!) since you’ll be able to use Google Maps and an internet browser to look up places to go, while on the go.
We used Pupuru Wi-Fi and had no complaints. It lasted almost all day (8-9 hours) on a full charge while we were out exploring.
2. Walk or take public transportation. Japan’s public transportation system is amazing — it’s always on time, so clean and makes traveling within the country simple. I strongly suggest you take the subway, trains, or even just walk around. Walking from place to place gives you the opportunity to explore all the neighborhoods and hidden alleyways with bars/restaurants/shops that you probably wouldn’t have come across otherwise.
3. Bring a plastic bag with you for trash. I don’t think we saw one public trash can as we walked through five cities in Japan. The country is extremely clean, but you probably won’t find a trash can out in the open (you will find vending machines, but that’s another story). As you’re walking through the cities, you’ll probably accumulate some trash from shops, food vendors and more, so bring along a small plastic baggie like a ziploc bag with you to throw them away while you’re on the go. You can throw all of this away in a convenience store or at your hotel/Airbnb at the end of the day.
4. Purchase a Japan Rail Pass. If you’re planning to hop from city to city and take the shinkansen, purchase a Japan Rail Pass. It was about $278 USD per person (at the time of this post) for a 7-day pass and you can use your rail pass to pay for any JR train (except the Mizuho and Nozomi Shinkansen). You’ll need to purchase the pass before you arrive in Japan, so buy it at home before your trip.
Cost-wise, it made more sense to purchase the JR Pass instead of purchasing individual train tickets separately, especially if you plan on taking the Shinkansen.
5. Bring cash! Japan is predominately a cash-only economy, so make sure to bring extra cash with you. This may have shifted slightly during the pandemic as cashless payments became more popular, but I’d still err on the side of bringing some cash just in case.
Especially if you’re planning on strolling through markets, street vendors, and eating ramen. You’ll be reaching for your yen and coins instead of a card more than you know.
Speaking of coins, it’s helpful to bring a little coin pouch with you (or buy one in Japan). I’ve never used coins as much as I did in Japan and having them all in one pouch made it much easier for purchases.
6. Convenience stores are great in Japan. I never thought I would recommend anyone to walk into a 7-Eleven but here we go. There was at least one convenience store (or ‘konbini’) on every couple of blocks – the most popular ones you’ll see are 7-Eleven, Lawson and Family Mart.
But the thing is, the convenience stores in Japan aren’t just like your 7-Eleven in the states. The konbini are actually enjoyable, and even fun to be in. You’ll find the usual items in a Japanese convenient store like chips, toothbrushes and drinks, but you’ll find so many interesting options for all of those products. You can also stop in to grab a quick bite to eat, with items like freshly made rice balls (onigiri), sandwiches and pastries.
They also have ATMs where you can exchange or withdraw money (helpful for tip #5!).
7. Lockers at Train Stations. Most of the train stations in Japan have coin lockers that you can stash your backpack or suitcases in. This is incredibly helpful if you’re traveling between cities and need a place to put your bag down so you can explore the city before checking into your hotel or Airbnb.
Depending on how large your locker is, they only cost about 300 – 500 yen for the day. It’s as easy as finding an open locker, dropping your stuff in it, locking it, and paying for the locker. Just remember where your locker is since the train stations are pretty large.
8. Train stations are malls. If you have no where to be, getting lost in a train station isn’t such a bad idea. The train stations are so large and inside you’ll find grocery stores, great food to take out, clothing stores and so much more. Major train stations also have a shopping area that’s multiple floors (we’re talking 8 or 9). It’s really just incredible to be in the middle of it all.
Any other tips or thoughts? Let me know in the comments. Happy traveling!