Bvlgari has a jewelry archive that most brands would build an entire hotel concept around. However, for its newest Signature Experience, its two hotels, Bvlgari Hotel Rome and Bvlgari Hotel Milan, chose to experience Italy’s two most popular cities. Instead, the brand built an itinerary around blind tastings, cocktail classes and other experiences unique to experiencing the two Italian cities.

The Treasure Hunt is Bvlgari Hotel’s new bookable experience. It sends guests through the city’s private ateliers, libraries and workshops on activities like scavenger hunts and puzzles. However, the two moments that will likely leave everyone talking afterward are around food and drink. One, a blind tasting devised by the group’s culinary team, and two, a cocktail-making session at Bvlgari Bar.

Giorgio Fuda, Executive Chef at Bvlgari Hotel Milano, intentionally built the tasting around six ingredients, all of which would be familiar to guests. “We deliberately chose six simple ingredients that we always have in our kitchen rather than products that are tied to a specific season,” he explains in a email interview. “What mattered was not rarity, but personality.” The goal was to prove creativity doesn’t come from scarcity, but rather it comes from combining familiar things in ways most wouldn’t think to experience.

Fuda says tasting blind changes how people eat for the rest of the trip. Without knowing what’s in front of them, guests “pay much more attention to their texture, aroma and flavor,” he said, details a normal meal typically lets slide right by. Even the pantry is kept deliberately bare. “The essentials that any professional kitchen relies on,” nothing more, so the six ingredients stay the point.

Over at Bvlgari Bar in Rome, Bar Director Desiré Verdecchia runs the cocktail challenge. However, the technical skill isn’t what wins the challenge. “The purpose of the event wasn’t to create technically perfect cocktails, but to allow participants to express an idea through a drink,” she said via the same email interview. Flavor balance takes years, not an hour, so the judging goes elsewhere. “What truly made them stand out was the story they told, the emotion they conveyed and the coherence behind each concept.”

Better yet, Verdecchia mentions a strong enough concept could genuinely shape a future Bvlgari Bar menu. “If a guest came up with a truly exceptional concept, we would be delighted to explore the idea together with our team,” she said. “It could become a source of inspiration for a future Bvlgari Bar creation, always ensuring it meets the same standards of quality and storytelling that define our signature cocktails.”

Bvlgari Group Executive Vice President Silvio Ursini built the whole format, and the idea started with wanting Bvlgari’s Roman heritage to feel less like something guests read about and more like something they walk through. “We wanted to transform storytelling into something interactive, bringing together hospitality, culture, and discovery,” he said via the same email interview. Food and drink ended up carrying it because, in his words, they’re “among the most authentic expressions of the Italian Art of Living.”

However, the current version isn’t the original. Back in November 2025, Bvlgari ran it as R-home of Wonders, a content-creator activation with four teams racing through Rome on camera. “That launch edition was intentionally more ambitious and elaborate than the experience guests can book today,” Ursini said. Getting to the bookable version wasn’t about cutting it down. Instead, it was about tightening the experience. One narrative instead of several, built around the Eight-Point Star as the connecting thread from day one. The concept for the first guest took about six months, most of it internal run-throughs to get the pacing right.

The format now runs in both Rome and Milan, with each hotel free to interpret it through its own kitchen and architecture. Whether it lands in Dubai, Tokyo or Beverly Hills next is still open. “The concept has the flexibility to evolve across our collection,” Ursini said. “Every destination has its own cultural identity, so future editions would always be locally inspired while sharing the same Bvlgari spirit.”

This article was originally published on Forbes.com