Donatella Versace brings the house’s signature drama to Asia in this spectacular, couture-coded palazzo resort dripping in fashion-house glamour

BY EMMA FLOYD

Versace has never been known for restraint, and Palazzo Versace Macau makes no attempt to start now. Opened in 2024 at the Grand Lisboa Palace Resort in Cotai, the fashion house’s first hotel in Asia brings full-throttle Italian glamour to one of Macau’s most ambitious and rapidly growing resort districts.

The sense of scale begins almost immediately. In the lobby, more than 80,000 hand-laid enamel mosaic tiles recreate the Palazzo at Via Gesù 12 in Milan, home to the Versace Atelier. The reference makes the hotel’s idea of an Italian palazzo quite literal, reproducing a piece of the house’s Milanese history in Macau.

Donatella Versace oversaw the hotel’s creative direction, but the interiors were not conceived as a simple transplant of the house’s European aesthetic. Textiles, carpets, mosaics, and decorative motifs were developed specifically for Macau, incorporating Chinese references alongside familiar Versace signatures. A Greek key might be immediately recognizable; other details, however, take longer to register.

The mosaics also carry their own piece of Versace history. Fantini Mosaici, the fourth-generation Milanese workshop that created them, has worked with the Versace family for decades, from private residences to boutiques worldwide. In Macau, its artisans used more than six million hand-cut mosaic pieces throughout the hotel. What appears at first to be decoration is also an extension of a much older working relationship.

Gianni Versace first expanded the brand into home furnishings in 1992, beginning with textiles before moving into furniture, porcelain, and decorative objects. In Macau, that progression has reached a different scale. Greek keys cross floors, Medusa heads punctuate interiors, and patterns once confined to silk stretch across entire rooms.

Across 271 rooms and suites, there is no pared-back version of Versace reserved for a standard room. Even Deluxe rooms, beginning at 592 square feet, feature furniture designed by Versace and hand-laid Italian marble mosaics, while patterns designed specifically for Macau appear across the furnishings of Premier rooms.

The house’s presence extends beyond what is immediately decorative. Bespoke linens, upholstery, selected artworks, and tablewares were created or curated for the hotel, carrying the same attention to the objects guests encounter throughout their stay. Even the bathrooms continue the sense of scale, with separate baths and walk-in showers appearing in rooms from the Deluxe category upward.

Increased space gives the house even more surfaces to work with. Bespoke fabrics, carpeting, terrazzo, and marble mosaics continue through the suites, culminating in the palatial 3,767-square-foot Imperial Suite on the hotel’s highest guestroom floor. With two bedrooms, a dining room, kitchen, study, massage room, and media room, the suite pushes the idea of Versace Home toward its most literal – and magnificent – conclusion. The aesthetic remains consistent as the square footage increases; the difference is one of scale.

The Jardim Secreto provides a counterpoint to the interiors: a formal European-style garden visible from many of the rooms and suites. Nearby, the mosaic work gets especially elaborate at the pools, where more than three and a half million pieces of Italian glass and marble form dragons, flowers, and Chinese symbols associated with well-being, wealth, fortune, and happiness. Here, the meeting of Macau and Milan is not tucked into a textile or decorative detail; it sweeps across the entire pool floor.

Italy takes a different form at Don Alfonso 1890. Rooted in the Iaccarino family’s original restaurant in Sant’Agata sui Due Golfi, the Michelin-starred Macau outpost draws from the food traditions of the Sorrento Peninsula and Amalfi Coast. Chef Ernesto Iaccarino continues a farm-to-table philosophy built over decades, using ingredients such as San Marzano tomatoes and Nocellara del Belice olives, along with produce from the family’s Le Peracciole farm at Punta Campanella. In Macau, those traditions travel considerably farther before reaching the table.

The meeting of Italy and Macau becomes less decorative at the spa. Mediterranean-inspired treatments sit alongside ancient healing therapies like gua sha, acupressure, and moxibustion, shifting the conversation between the two cultures from motifs and materials to real-world practice. From the mosaics underfoot to the traditions carried into its kitchen and spa, Palazzo Versace Macau extends the house beyond fashion without sacrificing its identity. Milan may provide the foundation, but Macau gives it a new vocabulary.

Palazzo Versace Macau — palazzoversace.mo