Hotel Bella Grande

Bella Grande is what happens when Copenhagen allows itself an Italian daydream, then edits it with Danish discipline. Set in a restored 1899 building just off City Hall Square, it trades Nordic understatement for parquet floors, glowing mirrors, striped banquettes, red room keys and bathrooms in burgundy and cream tiles. The mood is not minimal. Thank goodness.

The hotel wraps itself around a lively courtyard, where checkerboard floors, climbing greenery and candy coloured seating create the kind of scene in which even breakfast feels slightly dressed up. There is a filmic quality to the place, but also restraint. The public spaces enjoy a little theatre; the rooms know when to lower their voice. Upstairs, the atmosphere softens into tall windows, pale curtains, rounded furniture and warm ambient light. In the better categories, there is enough room to enjoy the design rather than simply photograph it.

Food is part of the logic. Bella Grande belongs to Cofoco, the Copenhagen restaurant group behind Coco Hotel and a small constellation of much loved city restaurants. Downstairs, Donna gives the hotel its pulse: an Italian restaurant with a red and pink dining room, cocktail lounge and atrium tables under the sky. This is not a lobby trying to become a restaurant after six. It is a restaurant that happens to have a very good hotel above it.

The address is almost unfairly practical. Tivoli, the old town, shops, museums, restaurants and the metro are all close enough to make overplanning look a little provincial. The trade off is that Bella Grande is a social hotel, not a monastery. For light sleepers, we would request a quiet room away from Donna and the courtyard, preferably higher up or towards the calmer side. For everyone else, the hum is part of the pleasure.