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Perched on the limestone cliffs above Port Phillip Bay, Hotel Sorrento is the Mornington Peninsula’s oldest hotel and its most enduring symbol of coastal glamour — a family-owned 1872 landmark that has just closed out a multi-year redevelopment without losing the salt-worn soul that made it famous in the first place.

a place to stay and play with the beautiful people and the locals

AMBIENCE >

Approaching along Hotham Road (and just up from the Sorrento <> Queenscliff Ferry), the two-storey limestone-and-brick building with its distinctive tower still reads as unmistakably Victorian, a Late Victorian Italianate structure designed by Hennessy & Deakin and built in stages from 1872 by the noted local mason John Farnsworth. It is the oldest extant hotel on the Mornington Peninsula, and the heritage bones show in the thick limestone walls and arched windows even where the interiors have been thoroughly modernised.

Inside, the mood has shifted decisively upmarket over the past few years. A new lobby, a smart lobby bar and rooftop wellness precinct (with its own pickleball court) were unveiled as the “final chapter” of an extended development program, layered over art-filled dining rooms, a Japanese-inspired courtyard spa and a cliff-edge pool terrace. The effect is a hotel that still feels like a proper seaside pub at its edges — a front bar open from 11am, weatherboard-and-limestone corridors — while its newer wings lean firmly into contemporary coastal luxury, with custom sun lounges, marble bathrooms and sweeping bay views.

SLEEP >

Rooms are split across several categories reflecting the building’s staged history: Classic Rooms sit in the original limestone structure with balconies over the bay and township, Pool Terrace rooms overlook the new 30-metre lap pool and parklands, and a run of newly built luxury suites — including private-garden rooms such as the Sunset Terrace — rounds out the top end.

The property added thirteen new luxury suites and a day spa in its 2023 upgrade, followed by a further eight luxury rooms in the most recent 2025–26 phase.

EAT >

Dining now runs across several distinct venues rather than a single restaurant. The Main Dining Room serves a broadly Mediterranean-leaning menu of shared and à la carte plates, while shihuishi — set in the hotel’s original ballroom — takes a bolder turn into modern Cantonese cooking under chef Junlin Yi (previously of Red Spice Road), pairing dishes like truffle dumplings and hoisin roast duck with playful cocktails. For something more private, the Wine Room seats up to ten or twelve guests for a curated multi-course menu drawn from local and international vineyards.

The events material describes the property as now running six or seven distinct dining and drinking venues in total, a notable expansion from the two-restaurant hotel of a decade ago.

DRINK >

The Front Bar remains the most laid-back option, open from 11am daily and closest in spirit to the hotel’s pub-era history. The newer Rooftop Bar takes the opposite approach: cocktails and sunset views over the bay from an open-air deck, though it’s worth noting the venue is seasonal and closes over winter. Between these two poles sits a wine-forward program built around the Wine Room’s cellar selections, giving guests a reasonably full spread from casual pub pint to considered by-the-glass wine list.

WORKOUT >

The rooftop precinct added as part of the recent redevelopment houses a state-of-the-art gym alongside an open-air yoga deck with panoramic bay views, a genuine upgrade from the hotel’s earlier, more modest fitness offering. The 30-metre pool terrace also functions as informal exercise space for lap swimmers, framed by the Grazia sun lounges that have become one of the redevelopment’s signature details.

PLAY >

Marlo Spa is the property’s headline wellness addition, tucked behind a Japanese-inspired courtyard just off the pool terrace, with a treatment menu spanning massage, facials and fire-and-ice therapies. Beyond the hotel walls, Sorrento’s village strip of galleries and boutiques is a two-minute walk away, and the Searoad car ferry to Queenscliff departs from a terminal close enough to fold into a half-day loop around the bay. For those wanting to range further afield, the hotel’s own marketing points guests toward Peninsula Hot Springs and other nearby wellness and wine experiences as part of curated packages.

CONCLUSION >

Hotel Sorrento has pulled off a difficult trick: layering a genuinely upscale, multi-venue resort experience — rooftop wellness, a proper day spa, a 30-metre pool, six-plus dining and drinking venues — onto a 150-year-old limestone pub without erasing what made the original building beloved. It is not a resort in the qualia mould of total seclusion; it sits in the middle of a busy seaside village and trades on that proximity as much as on its clifftop views. But for a Mornington Peninsula base that mixes heritage character with a genuinely elevated spa-and-dining program, it is now one of the strongest options on the bay side of the peninsula.

Hotel Sorrento’s story begins in 1872, when local businessman P.J. Martin, owner of the Australian Brewery, commissioned the first section of what became the hotel; it was designed by the architectural firm Hennessy & Deakin and built by mason John Farnsworth, making it the earliest extant hotel on the Mornington Peninsula. The building was extended in stages through to 1928, and together with the neighbouring Continental Hotel it helped define Sorrento’s distinctive Victorian-era skyline.

The hotel’s cultural profile got an unexpected boost through playwright Hannie Rayson, whose 1990 play Hotel Sorrento used the building’s name and setting as the backdrop for a story about three sisters reuniting at their family’s seaside home; the play was adapted into a 1995 feature film directed by Richard Franklin, starring Joan Plowright, Caroline Goodall and Tara Morice, which won an AFI Award for Best Screenplay. I cannot confirm any specific dialogue or plot detail beyond what’s documented in reviews of the film, but the association is well recorded in Mornington Peninsula heritage citations.

Ownership has been in the same family since 1981, when Rob and Anne Pitt took over the property; it remains family-owned and operated today, now with their children Bridget, Myles and Marcus Pitt involved in running the business, including overseeing the recent multi-year redevelopment that added the new suites, spa and rooftop precinct. The hotel’s own materials describe this continuity explicitly, framing the family-owned model as central to the guest experience — “from the history within the limestone walls to the selection of local drinks in the mini-bar,” as the hotel’s development page puts it.

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