The Hotel de Rome is a newly-opened hotel in Berlin's fashionable and desirable Mitte district. Its front entrance faces the Bebelplatz, the open area between the Staatsoper Unter den Linden and the Humboldt University Law School (the Bebelplatz was the site of a notorious Nazi book-burning in May of 1933).it is immediately next to St. Hedwig's Cathedral (the seat of the Roman Catholic archdiocese for Berlin,. The stage door of the Staatsoper is immediately across the street.

If you look at the following Google Earth satellite photo, its location in reference to the above buildings and streets is quite clear: If you blow the photo up to maximum close-up, the shape of the hotel building becomes clear as well.

The original four-story building (floors 0-3) was built in the late 19th century as the headquarters of the Dresdener Bank. At the time of the division of Germany, the State Bank of the German Democratic Republic occupied the building. After reunification, the building sat nearly empty (used only for temporary art exhibits, etc), until Rocco Forte Hotels agreed to develop the site.

Two floors of (new construction) sleeping rooms were added to the existing building, making for a total of six floors. From a glance of the fire evacuation map in the room, I would say that at least half of he rooms are on the new floors (and, guessing again, I would guess that the majority of junior suites and full suites are in the old section.

My stay took place about three weeks after the opening, and it was a very mixed experience - to summarize, the interiors of the building are beautiful (stunning is probably not too strong a word) in the way that the decorating team (headed by Rocco Forte's sister, I believe) has brought out the historical dimensions and shapes of the public areas. The salon that is located straight ahead of the entrance doors ((the front desk is off to the side) is a gorgeous function space (there was a private cocktail party going on which was partially lit by candlelight, very dramatic looking).

The front desk staff was very polished, handling registration and personal escort to the room with aplomb. The tone was just the right mix of unpreserved formality that I think one should be welcomed with.

My room was on the fifth floor, an upgrade from the base rate that I paid (part of a package rate). The room was decorated in beige, with various accent pieces in grey upholstery, dark wood, and red lacquer. The room itself was entered through a large vestibule area which contained the closet and storage shelves behind sliding red lacquer doors. The bathroom was off the vestibule. The room had two large floor-to-ceiling windows which looked out on an open court (because the building is not tall, the claustrophobic effect was avoided), The windows opened out to a small balcony, a little bigger than a Juliet balcony but not really bin enough to utilize for room service breakfast, say.

Bathrooms are larger than at the Regent, with full soaking tubs (nicely accented with patterned mosaic tiles), bidet, heated floor and separate fully-glassed-in shower with both a rainforest head and a wand attachment. Water pressure was excellent.
High Speed Internet access was Eur. 20 for 24 hours, and the connection was very fast with no drops (I noticed that the IP address resolved to a UK provider).

My package also included a welcome gift, which was a nice bottle of Prosecco with a very nice dish of small pastries and candies. Unfortunately, it was delivered late at night (while I was out at dinner - when I returned, I was so tired that I went to bed without enjoying the gift),

My real problems with the Hotel de Rome concern the staff service levels in the bar, restaurant, and the seeming lack of response from the front office when these situations were pointed out.

I visited the bar before going to an outside restaurant for dinner. My order took almost 25 minutes to be delivered - apparently my perfunctory waiter and the other staff had been enraptured by three lovely young ladies who came in just after I did, and I waited while the male/female thing was played out. Once delivered, I had to gulp down my drink so as to not be too late for my reservation (the drink was supposed to have been included in my package - the front desk clerk who checked me in told me I did not need a separate voucher - of course, as always happens in these cases, the Eur. 10 appeared on the bill).

Worse was the next morning, at breakfast - although the hotel stated on the breakfast menu that a hot buffet was available for Eur. 26 and continental buffer was Eur. 21, I was charged for the hot buffet although no hot dishes were on display. I realized later that maybe one needed to ask the waitperson for hot dishes, but my waiter didn't seem very interested in offering any service - he practically slammed down my tea order, and delivered the check with the tea - before I had even sat down to eat my cold breakfast (I would expect that kind of treatment at a Denny’s or Lester's Diner in Ft. Lauderdale, but at a hotel aspiring to be Berlin's best)? After dumping the tea and he check at the table, the waiter never did returned to check if I needed anything, such as another cup of tea (am I being picky, but shouldn't a five-star British-owned hotel brew its tea from leaves, not serve tea from bags)?

At checkout time, the clerk offered to have my bill rendered in USD instead of EUR, which I accepted. He neglected to mention that the hotel charged a 2.8% fee for the conversion (which I noticed only when I reviewed the bill later that day). Since my credit card only has a 1% conversion fee, it cost me an extra 1.8 percent, which I chalked up to experience (but I think that the fee should have been disclosed).

As I left, I asked for the General Manager's card with e-mail address, which was provided, and spent the train ride from Berlin to Leipzig composing an e-mail to the GM, relating both good pints and bad (actually, 2/3 of my message was praise). Unfortunately, the response (about five days later, when I was already back in the States) was disappointingly generic and nebulous - my detailed reports about the service deficiencies were essentially ignored.

In summary, I would say that the Hotel de Rome is very much a work in progress. The physical facilities, especially the public spaces, are very much worthy of five-star ranking. However, the service deficiencies and the lack of proactive response from the management leaves me to conclude that the staff is in serious need of further training, if they wish to compete with the Regent (only one block away).