Raffaele Solferino has been appointed food and beverage director of Le Royal Meridien in Bahrain, general manager Francesco Borrello announced.

As deputy general manager, Solferino, 40, assisted with the opening last year of Lebanon's first Sheraton Hotel.

Before that, he was the deputy general manager at Beirut's Bristol Hotel where he had started out as food and beverage director of the world-renowned Luxury Collection hotel.

Solferino has also held F&B management positions at the Sheraton in Abu Dhabi and Dubai as well as with restaurants and hotels in Britain, France, Germany, Indonesia and Monaco.

The Naples-born Italian was instrumental in developing London's Roof restaurant in the Park Lane Hilton Hotel and then opened a Windows on the World restaurant there in 1989.

He holds a diploma in hotel and restaurant management from a noted hotel school in Italy.

Solferino, who also speaks English and French, maintains that he has three ingredients that have been the "daily bread" in his food-and-beverage work: Quality, service and creativity.

He is an aficionado of art and has a particular fondness for interior decoration.

He is joined in Bahrain by his wife Ivana and two children: Ernesto, two and a half years, and Mariangela, nine months.