Hilton's roving Hans
The first thing you notice is the heavy scent of jasmine, cascading from each balcony. Then it's the artwork - there's a Tiepolo hanging over the concierge's desk. There's a stack of postcards with an arty shot of the hotel's two-Michelin-starred food. And is that Bach being played on the grand piano in the lounge?
But then, the Rome Cavalieri Hilton is not your average Hilton - and general manager Hans Fritz can take all the credit for that. In fact, the industry agreed - he was named European Hotel Manager of the Year 2001 this spring by the European Hotel Managers' Association.
Fritz took over as general manager here in 1993. He has worked for Hilton practically all of his hotel life, since starting as a receptionist at the London Hilton in 1966. "I'm a survivor," he grins. "Sometimes, I ask myself how I could have stayed so long with one company, but Hilton has always treated me extremely well - and I have changed jobs so many times, and whenever I do, I start a new life, learn a new language, so it's not like working for the same company at all."
Rome is his favourite posting, though, and he has no plans to move on. "I love it," he says. "Of all the countries in Europe, Italy is definitely the best. It has its shortcomings, sure, but if you know them, then it's wonderful. It's like their music - life here goes up and down. But, then, if you don't have a little bit of chaos, how can you ever create something new?"
Born in Germany in 1941, Fritz has wanted to run a hotel since he was 10 years old, when he read a book called Luggage Sticker 666. And it wasn't that his parents wanted him to go into the business. As he says: "We have a saying in Germany: if you can't find anything interesting to do, run a restaurant."
In the spirit of true teenage rebellion, he marched into the nearest five-star hotel and demanded a management apprenticeship. They offered him a job as a waiter, which he turned down. So he went to college for eight years instead. "I was the eternal student," he remembers. First, he studied art and literature, then hotel management. "Everybody should study something," he says, "even if it's knitting. You have to be champion at something, then you can do anything." Fritz is good at two things - running a hotel and appreciating art, which helps when you live in a city like Rome.
Best restaurant in town
As he is such an aesthete, why the Cavalieri Hilton? After all, it's not the most beautiful building in the world (the Time Out Guide Rome refers to it as a "bunker"). "You know, this is a historic landmark, built in the 1960s by the same architect who built the concert hall in the Vatican," Fritz explains. "It was a little sad-looking when I first got here, but I convinced the owners to invest some money, and told them that I wanted to have the best restaurant in town - everybody laughed at that one. But with diligence, and by being consistent, we did it."
Fritz's love of food is stimulated, no doubt, by the fair chunk of his time spent as food and beverage manager. Fritz has managed to clock up a few stars in Hilton hotels - one in Munich and in Vienna and, last February, a second star for the roof-terrace restaurant in the Rome Cavalieri Hilton, with more than one prominent food guide declaring La Pergola, under German chef Heinz Beck, to be the best restaurant in Rome. "I have great respect for chefs and I've even done a stage in a kitchen," Fritz reveals. "Heinz is a great technician. He really gets the dynamics going on the plate."
Celebrities followed and the hotel gets more than its fair share. Locals come in their droves, too. "We had a famous Italian entertainer in for lunch yesterday," Fritz says, proudly. "All the local glitzy people come here. The hotel is a focal point for the town."
The view helps. The hotel has an enviable position on one of Rome's many hills - Monte Mario - overlooking the Vatican in one direction, while the rest of the city stretches ahead. The hotel's gardens are particularly lush, packed with palms and sporting a pagoda that houses a harpist at teatime. It's another of Fritz's ideas, of which he is immensely proud. "It's gorgeous," he says. "We serve a real British tea, with scones and everything."
What else makes him proud? "The new executive floors," he replies. There are two, on the seventh and eighth floors of the hotel, part of the hotel's $15m (£10.3m) renovation, which will be completed by the end of the year. "It's a hotel within a hotel," Fritz declares. You get your own check-in desk (with complimentary glass of bubbly), your own elevator (so you can whiz down to the hotel's award-winning fitness centre in your white fluffy towelling robe) and your own lounge, which also serves breakfast. And you won't see a name badge. The hotel also happens to have the country's largest luxury hotel convention centre, housed on the lower ground floor - not that you'd know it: convention guests also have their own check-in.
Fritz doesn't head for the beach when he has time off. On the contrary, he buries his head in books. Last year, he jetted to Los Angeles to enrol in an appreciation course on the American short story. The year before that he rented an apartment in Florence and studied tapestry restoration. "When I come back, I have such a trained eye, I see all the mistakes, all the details. It teaches me how to focus on my own hotel," he says, taking a sip of iced water, garnished with a perfectly ripe strawberry.
Rome Cavalieri Hilton
Tel: 00 39 06 3509 1
Bedrooms: 372, including 25 suites
Staff: 350-400
Occupancy, 2002: 70-80%
Average achieved room rate: €253 (£158)
Business lost since 11 September: "About $4m (£2.76m), but because we were ahead of budget, we were OK"
Customer profile (in order of importance): Italian, American, British, German and other; one-third leisure, the rest business
Hans Fritz
General manager, Rome Cavalieri Hilton
Age: 61
1970-74: assistant front office manager, Dsseldorf Hilton
1974-77: assistant food and beverage manager, London Hilton on Park Lane
1978: food and beverage manager, Rabat Hilton
1978-80: food and beverage manager, Tunis Hilton
1980-82: food and beverage manager, Tel Aviv Hilton
1982-83: executive assistant manager in charge of food and beverage, Karlsrhe Hilton
1983-87: resident manager, Munich Park Hilton
1988-89: general manager, Paris Orly Hilton
1989-90: resident manager, London Hilton on Park Lane
1990-93: general manager, Vienna Plaza Hilton
1993-present: general manager, Rome Cavalieri Hilton
Colleges: Sorbonne University, Paris; Heidelberg Hotel School; Seville University; Cornell University; Columbia University and School of Business; Perugia University; London School of Economics
Languages: five
Hobbies: art and literature
Holidays: American short story appreciation course at UCLA, California
Regrets: "I've never worked in the USA. It's not really a regret, but it would have been nice to experience a different work ethic."
Favourite hotel: "The Regent Hong Kong - I'm in love with that building."
Favourite hotelier: "Ramón Pajares. I don't really know him, but I've always admired him."
Favourite Rome restaurant: Quinzi y Gabrielle
Favourite London restaurant: Hakkasan
Favourite city: "Rome, but I could live happily in London."
