New York City's finest stays fringe the streets of Manhattan, Brooklyn and beyond
For a city that claims to never sleep, there are hundreds – over 500 according to Booking.com – of places to rest your head for the night. Some are much more than just places to sleep; a special few are even integral to the city’s identity, with historic addresses such as the Plaza and the Waldorf Astoria playing starring roles in New York’s cityscape, plus some of the most beloved TV shows and films. The grand dames may last the test of time, but much of New York’s hotel scene is in a state of constant flux. New addresses pop up regularly and old ones are revamped to keep up with the changing trends. The scope of the best hotels in New York grows wider too, branching out well beyond the usual Time Square addresses, venturing downtown and even over the bridges.
What’s the best part of New York to stay in?
Locals will tell you to skip staying near Time Square, the soulless midtown monstrosity is a classic tourist trap with much hype but little to offer. If it’s your first time in New York or a whistle-stop trip, a hotel in midtown could be your best option for ease of getting around. But if you’re looking for a glimpse of real New York and its many personalities, some of the best hotels in New York are found outside of Midtown, like The Fifth Avenue Hotel in Nomad or Warren Street Hotel in Tribeca. Some of the city’s hottest addresses have even started to pop up outside of Manhattan, with Ace Hotel and 1 Hotel now with locations in Brooklyn and even Boro Hotel in Long Island City.
How we choose the best hotels in New York
Every hotel on this list has been selected independently by our editors and written by a Condé Nast Traveller journalist who knows the destination and has stayed at that property. When choosing hotels, our editors consider both luxury properties and boutique and lesser-known boltholes that offer an authentic and insider experience of a destination. We’re always looking for beautiful design, a great location and warm service – as well as serious sustainability credentials. We update this list regularly as new hotels open and existing ones evolve.
See more of our New York recommendations:
The Fifth Avenue Hotel, New York
Featured in our Hot List of the best new hotels in the world 2024
The latest to join the chorus line of hotels recasting the appeal of New York’s NoMad district, this private mansion turned jewel box stay high-kicks things up a notch. The original 19th-century building was part of the estate of the socialite Charlotte Goodridge, and has been refurbished by designer Martin Brudnizki into a sensorial treat to match its gilded past. For all the seeming ubiquity of Brudnizki-created spaces of late, this one feels like it couldn’t have been by anyone else. The vaulted lobby is dressed up in ornate panels; corridors are bedecked with vivid wallpaper featuring oversized flora and fauna; rooms are filled with painted screens and pagoda-style lamps that are an ode to the travels of hotel owner Alex Ohebshalom; and a go-for-broke assemblage of art, from old-world oils to modern photography, adorns every corner. It’s the bold palette Brudnizki is known for, a dreamlike pastiche that would have been chaos in the hands of anyone less practised. Just as adept is the hospitality that extends from the ready-to-please butler service on each floor to extra touches, such as the candle that’s slipped into your room after you’ve complimented the scent in the lobby, or the Martini cart that appears at the door for an eleventh-hour craving. It’s a place to return to: for cocktails named after your favourite destinations at the Portrait Bar, oysters à la pomme and lobster cannelloni at Café Carmellini – but most of all for the chance to wake up in a giant cabinet of curiosities. Arati Menon
Warren Street Hotel
Featured in our Hot List of the best new hotels in the world 2024
To step into the Warren Street Hotel is to immerse yourself in the whimsical and wacky world of Kit Kemp. As the interior designer’s third New York City property with the Firmdale hospitality group (and 11th overall), each space is packed with her trademark eccentricity and magpie-like knack for sourcing eclectic artworks and inspiration from around the world – from the British craft and ceramics on display in the light-filled “Orangery” downstairs to the abstract sculptures greeting guests in the buttercup yellow lobby. Even the carpets are done up in a limited edition batik pattern, courtesy of Kit Kemp for Wilton Carpets. Meanwhile, no two rooms are the same – all have been designed by Kemp to exude their own personality, whether it be through the patterned headboards above king-size beds, one-of-a-kind artworks spanning all sorts of creative movements and styles, custom-made wallpaper and egg-shaped lighting, or even an occasional mishmash of antique furniture. Downstairs at the restaurant, where Tribeca locals jostle with guests for a prime-time table, dishes like a rich foie gras terrine and spaghetti alle vongole are served beneath custom-made wallpaper so beautiful it almost rivals the murals at the Carlyle’s legendary Bemelmans bar uptown. Kemp is a master when it comes to transforming a space into a riot of colour and wit, and this latest endeavour may just be her most playful yet. Lale Arikoglu
Casa Cipriani
Featured in our Gold List of the best hotels in the world 2024
This New York hotel is a Cipriani property, so it’s luxury to the max, but in that effortlessly chic Italian sort of way. Picture it: presidential suites featuring cashmere-covered walls by Loro Piana Interiors – that’s the sort of luxurious detail you’ll find in every nook and cranny of the guest rooms at Casa Cipriani. The sheets on the bed are from the 150-year-old luxury linen house Rivolta Carmignani based in Macherio, just outside of Milan. Prior to check-in guests can choose between Italian cotton or Italian linen. It’s hard not to fall completely under the spell of the hotel from the minute you step into your room or suite. Maybe it’s the Art Deco light fixtures or artwork on the wall. Maybe it’s the jazz playing softly in the background, or the way the setting sun hit the lacquer furniture and the shiny brass knobs. But perhaps the most remarkable thing about the guest rooms at Casa Cipriani are the private terraces. The spacious private terraces. Be sure to request a river-facing room because there’s really nothing like this view anywhere in town. Next to the hotel, you’ve got the Staten Island Ferry pulling in and out of Whitehall Terminal; that’s Governor’s Island straight ahead and beyond that, Brooklyn. To your right, you’ve got the Statue of Liberty. But there’s also so much going on inside Casa Cipriani that no one would blame you if you spent your entire stay on the premises: the Club restaurant, the Jazz Café, the Pickering Room, the Promenade Bar, and the Living Room. On top of all that, the hotel service is attentive but not at all intrusive. They truly make you feel like you’re the most important person in the room, and who doesn’t want to feel like that for a few nights? Lauren DeCarlo
The Greenwich Hotel
Featured in our Gold List of the best hotels in the world 2024
For one of my first visits to New York as a teenager, a family friend offered to host me for the weekend. I didn’t know him that well, but I heard the words “Manhattan apartment” and conjured visions of leather armchairs and silk rugs, parlour palms and walnut desks, and artwork sourced from far-flung travels. My grand expectations didn’t meet reality – but they do here at The Greenwich Hotel. This exquisitely designed property in Tribeca opened its doors in 2008 but feels like it’s been part of the city’s fabric for much longer. Perhaps it’s the hotel’s lived-in aesthetic textures: Not one of its 87 rooms, suites, and penthouses looks like another, all furnished by your chicest, most well-travelled uncle. In the guest rooms, there are Savoir beds, hand-made and cloud-like; in the bathrooms, Carrara marble and Moroccan tile; in the lobby, terra-cotta floors modelled after those in a 14th-century Italian palazzo; in the spa (featuring, in my humble opinion, the best indoor pool in Manhattan), timber that once held up a 250-year-old farmhouse in Japan – all of it undeniably luxe yet somehow unpretentious. Or maybe it’s The Greenwich’s rep: One of the owners is the actor Robert De Niro, who grew up nearby; paintings by his father, the abstract expressionist Robert De Niro Sr., add colourful drama to the hotel’s walls (childhood photos of both Bobbys, found in some guest rooms, are delightful Easter eggs). Or it might be the service: polished and friendly, familiar in a welcome way. With its thoughtful design and hospitality ethos, The Greenwich Hotel can’t help but echo the old Italian-American saying: When you’re here, you’re family. Matt Ortile
The Ritz-Carlton New York
Featured on our 2023 Hot List of the best new hotels in the world
When Ritz-Carlton announced its ambition to open in the NoMad neighbourhood, it raised some questions. Would it deliver its trademark brand of traditional luxury or incorporate some of the energy of the hotels that have transformed this once-anonymous neighbourhood into a place with a pulse? But this looks like the brand going a little off its beaten path: there’s a José Andrés restaurant serving moreish branzino, a lobby with hand-blown Randy Zieber light fixtures and an arboretum’s worth of potted plants around the place. Through the hotel’s outdoor plaza, passersby spy entrepreneurial types, heads bowed over Old Fashioneds on the green bar stools beneath a canopy of foliage. Upstairs, the rooms have cloud-like beds and wide windows with expansive views. The subterranean spa, with its black Italian-marble treatment rooms, has a reputation for its facials. The old indulgences, straight out of the Ritz’s classic playbook, blend seamlessly with the NoMad vibe. Scott Bay
The Lowell, New York City
This privately owned property on ritzy East 63rd Street, with Hermès for a neighbour and Barneys diagonally across the way, has always been exceptionally chic. But even the loveliest hotels have to age, and what the Lowell needed, as even its most diehard devotees had started to whisper, was a facelift. Well, she got it. After a three year renovation, the once-sombre black entrance lobby was gone by its 2017 opening, replaced by a gorgeous neoclassical foyer, bright and welcoming, sympathetic of scale. Behind it, there’s the Club Room, the most cosseting drawing room of any hotel in New York. And even the dear old Pembroke Room, which magics up the best afternoon tea in the city, has had a makeover; it’s still pretty as a peach but somehow fresher and airier. Majorelle is a beautiful, Moroccan-inspired French restaurant run by Charles Masson, previously of La Grenouille. There are vast arrangements of lilies and hydrangeas, sweet-smelling, blousy pink roses on the tables, a working fireplace for the winter and a retractable roof for summer. And all this before you’ve even tasted the magnificent couscous, perhaps, or the tangy tagine of snapper with preserved lemons. The bedrooms are the last word in elegance, with polished mahogany floors, Persian rugs and good, hand-made furniture (plus great technology, of course). Once again, everything at The Lowell is exactly as it should be. Laura Itzkowitz
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