Among the many institutions that have sprung up on Italian soil over the millennia — the Roman Senate, the Vatican, Eataly — none are closer to my heart than the Italian hotel bar. If you’ve leafed through early Hemingway stories, loitered about the Accidentally Wes Anderson account on Instagram or visited such an establishment yourself, you’ll know precisely what I mean.

These are the surprisingly intimate, often ornate bars tucked into closet-sized spaces in five-star hotels where staff in black bowties mix stiff drinks and somehow keep their white jackets Campari-stain-free. Sitting at the matrix of several industries that were savaged by Covid — tourism, hotels and cocktail bars — I feared I’d find them in a similar state to the ruins at the Roman Forum.