Lydia Forte MBA'13D

Lydia Forte is Vice President of Food & Beverage at Rocco Forte Hotels. She is the daughter of Sir Rocco Forte and the niece of Olga Polizzi.

Lydia is responsible for the performance of the group’s food and beverage offerings, including its restaurants, bars, meetings & events and in-room dining, overseeing the overall strategy for food and beverage. This includes developing new restaurant and bar concepts for the group in Italy, Germany, UK, Belgium and Russia and maintaining the quality of food and service in all the hotels. It also involves responsibility for profits in Food & Beverage, including driving sales and cost control and an overview of marketing, branding and public relations for the company’s bars and restaurants. Food & Beverage across the group accounts for 26% of the total revenue and up to as much as 34% of revenue in some hotels, making it a vital part of the group’s business.

In Italy, Lydia works closely with 2 Michelin-starred chef Fulvio Pierangelini who is Rocco Forte Hotel’s Creative Director of Food for Italy and Belgium, and in the UK, she works with Michelin starred chef Adam Byatt at Brown’s Hotel and The Balmoral. With the bars across the group, Lydia has brought cocktail maestro Salvatore Calabrese on board as Group Bar Consultant.

Lydia has set out to create restaurants that are revered by the locals living in the city, as well as by hotel guests. The restaurants and bars of Rocco Forte Hotels are a combination of luxurious, elegant simplicity and brilliant service that invites guests into a warm and embracing atmosphere, to experience and discover excellent food and delicious drinks that use seasonal ingredients. Since 2014, Lydia has been responsible for opening restaurants from Florence to Munich, Berlin to Puglia. In 2019, Charlie’s opened at Brown’s Hotel and has grown into an institution with Adam Byatt at the helm. At Villa Igiea, which opened to critical acclaim in June 2021, Lydia launched Florio restaurant, Igiea Terrazza bar and Alicetta Pool Bar, each serving Sicilian favourites with menus created by Pierangelini. Lydia is working on the development of the entire food and beverage offering for The Carlton Milan, set to open in 2025, which will include a breakfast conservatory, speciality restaurant and cocktail bar & terrace.

Continuously striving for innovation and excitement in cuisine, Lydia has also launched pop-up concepts in partnership with restaurants across Europe. Verdura Resort played host to London neighbourhood favourite Dinings SW3 in 2022 and 2023 to great success; and Crudo Bar by Fulvio Pierangelini launched at Villa Igiea and Verdura Resort.

Since joining the company over ten years ago, Lydia has increased the Food & Beverage revenue across the Rocco Forte Hotels group. Lydia’s efforts have also received industry recognition with Rocco Forte Nourish, a healthy eating project across all the hotels launched in collaboration with Irene Forte and local nutritional experts which won a Catey Award in 2017. She won Top Family Business Rising Star at the European Families in Business Awards in 2018. Lydia is a judge on the
Gold Service Scholarship, the UK’s most prestigious Front of House award that aims to inspire, educate and nurture the UK’s finest Front of House Talent. She is also an investor in the first season of the television series Million Pound Menu on BBC2 and Netflix which aired in April 2018.

In November 2023, Lydia worked with Salvatore Calabrese to launch Bar Magritte at Hotel Amigo in Brussels, to great acclaim. Inspired by the life and work of celebrated Belgian Surrealist artist René Magritte, Bar Magritte unveiled a unique sensory experience and a new destination cocktail bar in the heart of Brussels combining expert mixology, exquisite design, and a sense of mystery. The cocktail menu was split into two sections, ‘His Works’ and ‘His World’. ‘His Works’ features ten ingenious concoctions inspired by Magritte’s artworks and ‘His World’ includes ten classic cocktails drawn from Magritte’s lifetime. Bar Magritte’s food menu also showcases a selection of small plates featuring Belgian classics inspired by Magritte’s favourite foods.

After studying Modern History at Oxford University, Lydia worked in a variety of roles from accountancy to front of house operations across a range of independent restaurants. Following this Lydia then completed an MBA at INSEAD in 2013. Lydia’s native language is English and she speaks fluent Italian and French, conversational Spanish and Greek. Lydia is on the development board for her local charity West London Zone which supports children at risk. She is also on the trading board of the National Portrait Gallery.