La Dolce Vita Orient Express Marks the Return of Glamour on the Rails
Conceived by Paris-based Accor, with sleek interiors by Dimorestudio, La Dolce Vita makes the old seem thrillingly new again
W hen the Venice Simplon-Orient Express resumed service from Istanbul to Venice after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 made Central European train tracks available again, I was fortunate enough be a passenger on the very first trip. During the excursion, I’d just returned from after-dinner dancing in the bar car and shed my tuxedo when the train stopped at a small, shabby station in Bulgaria, where the platform was packed in the middle of the night.
Sitting there in the dark, I suddenly understood that it was the chance to glimpse the famous train that had drawn the crowd. I turned on the lights in my compartment so people could see in and distributed the little bars of complimentary soap, stationery, and pens to wide-eyed people below through the window. Such is the power the Orient Express exercises, and this desire to reprise the past is why the 142-year-old marque has an enduringly powerful allure.
This also means that expectations for the new La Dolce Vita Orient Express train would be freighted with the exclusivity, romance, and luxury of the Belle Epoque or the roaring twenties, time periods with a catnip appeal across a spectrum of generations. Conceived by Paris-based Accor, one of the world’s largest hotel companies, La Dolce Vita encompasses eight luxury rail journeys, including my planned three-day, two-night trip from Rome to Venice and Portofino and back.
A porter escorted me to carriage 11, painted a natty indigo with prune trim and windows in brass frames. There, I met Cristiano, my charming Italian steward, and he unlocked the door to my deluxe cabin on one of the 7 passenger cars that comprised this 12-car train. (The others were the dining car, the bar car, the locomotive, and service cars.)
On a scorching day, my compact cabin was blessedly cool, and its 75 square feet had been efficiently configured. A double bed with a striking orange, brown, and cream cubist rendition of the heavy carpetbag upholstery of Orient Express trains of yore had been turned into a sofa with two bolsters for day use, and a tub chair sat by the writing desk in front of the large picture window. Most impressively, I had my own snug bath with a WC, sink, and stall shower.
The train, which holds up to 62 passengers, is almost a hundred percent Italian: Cars were built in Brindisi, and Milan-based Dimorestudio designed the sleek interiors, which were fabricated in Palermo. After unpacking, I settled into the armchair, and when the train began to leave the station, the intrigued and often slack-jawed expressions of several dozen Romans on other platforms reminded me of that moonlit night a long time ago.
For my first lunch seating, I shared a table with a chic Roman woman who raved about the decor of the dining car, with its tobacco leather tub chairs at white-linen-set tables and fitted apricot, chocolate, and cream carpeting, approvingly describing it as “molto Gio Ponti.” We were delighted by the menu of Rome-based, Michelin three-star chef Heinz Beck, which included amberjack with zucchini, almonds, and saffron; smoked gnocchi with shellfish and charred cherry tomatoes; pistachio-crusted veal fillet; and a creamy dessert of milk, caramel, and licorice.
When the train arrived at Venice’s Santa Lucia station, I joined four other passengers for a perfectly conceived visit to La Serenissima: aperitifs at Caffè Florian, a private guided tour of the fascinating Fortuny Museum, and dinner at Harry’s Bar. I returned to the train, and the bar car—with a talented piano player, harlequin paneling, and two long scallop-edged facing banquettes—filled up with guests looking for some conversation and a nightcap before turning in.
The next day, after a lazy breakfast in my compartment, I joined the same small group for a boat tour of the Portofino coastline. Punctuated by a stop for swimming and a delicious Ligurian lunch of lasagna with fresh pesto sauce and a fritto misto of local fish and shellfish in a restaurant overlooking the beach of San Fruttuoso, the outing was as flawless as our Venetian adventure the night before.
Maybe best of all, however, was the chance to sit quietly in my cabin and daydream over the magnificent parasol- and Aleppo-pine-dotted rural landscapes of maritime Italy. La Dolce Vita is the perfect antidote for anyone who’s starved for bona fide glamour, social graces, and unostentatious quality, because it succeeds so brilliantly at making the old seem thrillingly new again.
A version of this article first appeared in print in our 2025 Late Fall Issue under the headline “Time Travel.” Subscribe to the magazine.