Sara Checchi runs the cellar at the world's best hotel
The Roman sommelier now pours wine and drinks across eight restaurants at Rosewood Hong Kong, named the world's best hotel two years running.
Sara Checchi runs the wine and drinks programme for all eight restaurants at Rosewood Hong Kong, the hotel The World's 50 Best Hotels has named the world's best two years running.
Checchi, 39, grew up in Subiaco outside Rome and studied economics at the University of L'Aquila, paying her way with weekend shifts as a waitress. The floor, not the classroom, is where wine took hold. "It started as a secondary interest," she said in an interview published by Identità Golose on 3 November. "It became the main one."
From a weekend shift to Piazza Duomo's cellar
It started as a secondary interest. It became the main one.
She trained at the Alma culinary school, then moved through Da Vittorio in Brusaporto and Piazza Duomo in Alba, where she became head sommelier and oversaw a cellar of more than 2,000 labels tied to the Ceretto family. Postings at the Waldorf Astoria Lusail in Doha, Mott 32 and The Aubrey followed, the last two in Hong Kong.
She has led wine and beverage at Rosewood Hong Kong since June 2025. The job covers eight restaurants, including two Michelin-starred kitchens, the Cantonese Legacy House and the Indian Chaat, plus two bars, two executive lounges and the hotel's banquet and events wine lists. She is now opening Bar Camillo, a joint concept with Bar Leone, which has ranked first in Asia's 50 Best Bars for two consecutive years.
What guests are ordering at the world's best hotel
Checchi says the pattern at the table has shifted: guests order fewer bottles but ask more questions, and some spend a mid-range bottle's price on a single premium glass, poured through a Coravin. Low-alcohol wines and sparkling tea pairings are drawing more interest, often alongside a tasting menu rather than instead of one.
The 50 Best title has raised expectations along with visibility, she said. Guests notice small lapses faster than before, which she treats as a reason to keep tightening service rather than a burden.
Her favourite regions remain the Langhe, which she says taught her that wine is inseparable from land and the people who work it, and Burgundy, whose plainness she calls deceptive. Her advice to colleagues starting out is blunt: learn languages, take the simple roles first, and do not rush the apprenticeship.
Hong Kong, she says, is demanding and rewarding in equal measure. The distance from her family in Italy is the only part of the job she has not made peace with.
