Stefano Cuoco of Miramis on Blending Italian Soul with Swedish Precision, and Why Hospitality's Future Is Entertainment

Miramis Hospitality and Entertainment occupies a position that almost no other hospitality company shares: a portfolio built across two countries with no obvious connection — Sweden and Italy — unified not by geography but by a shared philosophy of culture, creativity, and genuine hospitality. Stefano Cuoco, CEO of Miramis, sat down with Adam Mogelonsky to explain how the company is building something genuinely distinctive at the intersection of hospitality, entertainment, wellness, and local culture, and why the future of luxury travel looks far more like storytelling than it does like service standards.

The conversation spans the Tuscan coast portfolio and its emphasis on hyper-local food and culture, an ambitious agriturismo project producing its own wine and olive oil, a forthcoming wellness and longevity concept built around biohacking rather than spa treatments, the integration of live entertainment into the guest experience through historic and newly built venues in Stockholm, and a clear philosophy on growth that rejects scale for its own sake.

What is Miramis, and where does Italy meet Sweden?

Miramis is a Swedish-born hospitality company, part of the larger Qarlbo group, built on the owners' personal passion for Italy and specifically the Tuscan coast. The combination is unusual on paper but coherent in practice. "It blends a uniqueness of the organization and the way of getting things done of the Nordics, together with the soul and the creativity of the Italians," Cuoco says. "That's what you can find in our properties in both Italy and Sweden today."

The result is a portfolio defined less by geography than by a shared set of values — culture, creativity, design, and genuine hospitality — expressed differently in each market. Sweden contributes innovation and precision; Italy contributes warmth, lifestyle, and emotional richness. "Together it creates a very distinctive identity for all our properties," Cuoco says.

The Tuscan coast: Maremma and Argentario

When international travelers think of Tuscany, they think of Chianti, Florence, and the rolling hills around Montepulciano. Few think of the Maremma and the Argentario coast — the less-discovered southern stretch of the region, where Miramis has built its Italian portfolio.

"The Maremma and Argentario represent a very different side of Tuscany," Cuoco says. "It's coastal, it's unspoiled, and obviously less discovered internationally." The landscape combines Mediterranean coastline with small fishing villages, agricultural land, vineyards, and protected nature — a version of Tuscany defined by authenticity rather than the saturation of its better-known destinations.

At the heart of the Argentario portfolio is LA ROQQA, a 50-room boutique hotel overlooking the harbor of Porto Ercole, designed around contemporary boutique sensibility and what Cuoco describes as a La Dolce Vita flavor. Its rooftop restaurant and bar, Scirocco — named for the wind that blows through the region — has become a destination in its own right, drawing local residents and travelers who are not staying at the hotel. The wine list runs to more than 100 selections, exclusively Tuscan. "We really want it to be clear that we are rooted in the land where we operate," Cuoco says.

A five-minute walk from LA ROQQA sits Isolotto, the property's private beach club, accessible by a secluded path through trees or by boat and electric shuttle. On the opposite side of the Argentario peninsula is Torre di Cala Piccola, a 50-room historic property — currently under renovation — built around a centuries-old Spanish watchtower, with sweeping sunset views over the Tuscan Archipelago. "There's an original suit of armor, a boat model, and legend says there's a ghost in the tower," Cuoco says. "But it's a nice ghost. It helps the guests — it doesn't scare them."

Where the guests come from

The Tuscan coast portfolio's primary market is the United States, followed by the UK and Northern and Central Europe, with Italian travelers concentrated in the peak summer months of July and August. The properties run an extended season from early April to early November. "Our guests are experience-driven travelers," Cuoco says. "They really care deeply about food, culture, atmosphere, and discovering places with personality."

From peeling apples to CEO

Cuoco's path to leading Miramis began at the bottom of the industry, literally. "I was lucky enough to start my hospitality career peeling apples as a helper in the pastry section of the Hotel Hilton in Rome," he says. From there he worked his way through Hilton, Starwood, and Rocco Forte, before moving into privately owned and private-equity-backed properties — an experience that exposed him to a different side of the business.

What drew him to Miramis was the scale of ambition behind the project: the chance to merge two countries' hospitality traditions with entertainment, wellness, and culture at a formative moment for the company. "What we do today is really shaping the way we do hospitality," he says. "That was really the reason why I decided to join this project." On what makes hospitality unique as an industry for this kind of trajectory, Cuoco is direct: "Where you genuinely care about the guest and their emotions rather than the simple standards on the books — this is where you can really succeed."

Storytellers, not staff

Miramis's central philosophy reframes the entire service relationship. "Hospitality is a service industry, but that's only partially true," Cuoco says. "It's not performing the task of service where we make the difference. It's how much we care while we do it." The brand does not have staff; it has storytellers — a deliberate reframing that puts every team member in the position of owning the guest's emotional experience rather than simply executing a task.

"Guests want experiences that feel more personal and culturally connected to the place, and genuine," Cuoco says. "The only way is to have our talents, our people, telling a story to them." Technology, in this framework, exists to amplify the human side of hospitality rather than to replace it. "It's a tool that we need to use to enhance the experience while preserving the human side of hospitality at its core."

Cuisine as a state of mind, not a marketing line

Miramis's approach to food on the Tuscan coast goes well beyond a commitment to local sourcing. The brand works directly with an association of disabled individuals who farm vegetables for the properties as part of their integration into working life — the hotel's chef sits with them to plan seasonality and select varieties, and the relationship extends to shared land at La Capitana, the brand's countryside estate.

The result of that relationship shows up on the plate. Scirocco's standard spaghetti al pomodoro is built from eight different homegrown tomato varieties, each prepared with a different cooking technique before being blended into a single dish. "That's taking a simple local dish to the next level," Cuoco says. "Using local product is not just a marketing tool. It's a state of mind."

La Capitana: a 22-hectare countryside complement

La Capitana is a 22-hectare country estate built around a villa dating to 1797, currently under renovation into a 12-suite property. The estate produces its own extra virgin olive oil, is developing its own winery, grows fruit from ancient Tuscan seed varieties, and keeps bees — a working agricultural operation that doubles as a guest experience.

The deliberately small scale is a strategic choice, not a constraint. "It's not about how much money you do out of it," Cuoco says. "It's a completely different level of personalization and tranquility. It creates intimacy, privacy, and flexibility that larger luxury resorts struggle to achieve." Located less than 30 minutes from the Argentario coast, La Capitana is designed to be paired with the seaside properties within a single stay — giving guests both the fishing village atmosphere of the coast and the slower, farm-rooted rhythm of the countryside. "Having fisherman village vibes together with farm hospitality and countryside experience in the same journey is not that common," Cuoco says.

Ex Cirio: wellness and longevity, not spa

The newest project in the Italian portfolio is Ex Cirio, a 20-room hotel under development in a historic cannery building that once produced canned anchovies and tuna before closing in the 1940s. For Cuoco, restoring an abandoned site with deep roots in the local economy was a matter of long-term responsibility to the community as much as a commercial opportunity.

The positioning of Ex Cirio within the Miramis portfolio is explicitly wellness and longevity-focused, though Cuoco is careful to draw a sharp distinction from conventional spa hospitality. "It's not about going to a spa where you relax and get a massage," he says. "It's more about biohacking — a 360-degree approach to longevity where you blend nutrition, recovery, and movement into an integrated, natural lifestyle, rather than an isolated treatment inside a traditional spa concept." The project will also draw on the broader Miramis ecosystem, incorporating products derived from La Capitana's own aromatic herbs and olive oil.

Sustainability as community responsibility

For Cuoco, sustainability at Miramis extends well beyond environmental metrics. "It's more about a long-term responsibility toward the places and communities where we operate," he says, encompassing local culture, economic stimulation, and practical eco-conscious choices.

One concrete example: LA ROQQA eliminated single-use water bottles from guest rooms in favor of certified filtered tap water and reusable aluminum bottles that guests can take home. The result was a saving of approximately 15,000 plastic bottles in a single season. "It's a matter of culture, a matter of responsibility," Cuoco says. "We actively do it. We believe guests increasingly appreciate experiences that feel responsible."

The community dimension extends to staffing. Despite operating seasonal properties, roughly 75% of Miramis's approximately 230 seasonal employees are locally hired — a deliberate investment in local schools and families to build the next generation of storytellers. Cuoco notes with particular pride that some employees who had left for Milan, Rome, or Florence have returned to work for Miramis in their hometowns. "If you give them the right reason to come back, they will," he says.

Stockholm: hospitality meets entertainment at scale

The Swedish side of the Miramis portfolio is anchored by Hasselbacken — the hotel where the Hasselback potato was invented, a property with roughly 260 years of culinary heritage — and by a genuinely unusual asset for a hospitality company: Cirkus, one of Stockholm's oldest live entertainment venues, owned and operated by Miramis directly across from Hasselbacken. Dating to the 1800s, Cirkus has hosted Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, and The Rolling Stones across its two stages, with capacities of 1,500 and 700 seats.

The entertainment arm is not an adjacent business line; it is integrated directly into the guest experience. "If you can give your guests local experiences and emotions that are connected to hospitality, you are simply adding value to it," Cuoco says. Hotel guests get preferred access to Cirkus programming, including the possibility of intimate, unplugged events with major artists exclusively for hotel guests — a level of programming far beyond the lobby music that typically passes for hotel entertainment.

The newest addition to the Stockholm portfolio is Gasometern, a former gas storage facility being converted into what Cuoco describes as one of the most advanced construction projects in Northern Europe. Designed for immersive productions, digital art, and hybrid performance formats, Gasometern will house more than 250 speakers in a surround sound system built to simulate the acoustics of a full opera house. The venue has already secured a multi-year partnership with the Swedish Royal Opera while their own venue undergoes renovation — an arrangement that gives Gasometern immediate artistic credibility on an international stage. "We need to value both worlds, hospitality and entertainment, at the same level," Cuoco says. "We have the opportunity to give our guests experiences like no others."

Growth, branded residences, and the role of AI

Asked about the company's growth trajectory, Cuoco rejects scale as a goal in itself. "We have no plan saying we will have 20 hotels by 2030," he says. "We don't really care and think that way." The focus instead is on destinations that combine hospitality, wellness, local culture, gastronomy, and entertainment in places with rich history and untapped potential — a deliberately selective approach.

On branded residences, Cuoco sees long-term potential, but with a clear caveat: authenticity has to be real, not applied. "If you decide to go into a residential property that's not authentic or connected to the place where it's built, it's just a real estate product," he says. People are increasingly drawn to residential concepts that feel emotionally connected to a place and its community — and that bar applies to branded residences as much as it does to hotels.

On AI travel search, Cuoco sees a genuine opportunity for smaller, story-driven brands like Miramis to connect directly with guests, bypassing third-party intermediaries — provided the technology is used to remove friction and improve personalization rather than to replace human connection. "Technology should support us, not replace the emotional guest connection," he says.

Destinations with a soul

Asked what he wants people to understand about Miramis above all else, Cuoco returns to the company's founding idea. "At the core, Miramis is really about creating destinations with a soul — long-term cultural relevance more than the product itself," he says. "We want to build places that people remember emotionally, not just visually because you have a nice hotel."

That ambition, more than any specific property or partnership, is what ties the Tuscan coast to Stockholm, the fishing village atmosphere of Porto Ercole to the acoustics of a converted gasometer, and the storytellers on the ground to the broader vision Cuoco has for the company's future. "We really see a major shift towards experience-driven luxury," he says. "People prioritize emotion and atmosphere and connection to the local community over traditional status symbols."