Hotels like to advertise that they offer all the comforts of home, only better. So why is it so hard to find healthy items like cage-free eggs, low-fat milk and grass-fed beef in the restaurants of most large full-service hotels? Read more
Libraries and libations go together like gin and tonic. Or perhaps we should say like Islay scotch, Chambery Blanc vermouth, South India Solera sherry and crème de cacao, the makings of the Old Alhambra cocktail we had in the Library lounge and bar at the new NoMad Hotel. Read more
Talk about a double whammy. First came the news that Le Parker Meridien’s new next-door neighbor will be a new 296-room boutique hotel. Then yesterday morning the new neighbor invaded Parker Meridien’s turf. Read more
Many are called – and last week we were among them, taking a seat in the gigantic two-room juror’s bullpen at 60 Centre Street. Read more
When Hollywood’s luckiest lookers thank their lawyers, agents, stylists and Mom for their screen success this Sunday, where do you want to be? Sure, you can stay home with your TV and Twitter feed, but watching the festivities on a big screen at a hotel can be so much more fun.
We found three hotels in different parts of town that go all out for Oscar night. The envelope, please! Read more
Chocolate cocktails sound pretty good, but as I discovered on a recent visit to the lounge at the Pierre Hotel, they’re oddly polarizing.
While keeping a friend company before she went to a dinner party upstairs, I spotted the bar’s Chocolate Cocktail Festival menu featuring eight drinks (five hot, three chilled) and two lavish desserts, $14 each. Read more
Twice a year Restaurant Week muscles onto our dining radar with its vaunted three course fixed price lunches and dinners. Now in its 20th year, the twice-yearly promotion timed to boost business during winter and summer slow spells attracts more than 300 restaurants including more than 30 in hotels. This year’s first promotion, with $24.07 lunches and $35 dinners on weekdays, ends this Friday, February 10. Read more
Talk about a misnomer. Lady Mendl, aka Elsie de Wolfe, the pioneering interior designer and Age of Innocence-era grand dame, never lived in the twin 1834 townhouses containing the tea salon bearing her name. And we can’t imagine this crusading modernist who loathed Victorian frou frou would have selected, or condoned, the curvaceous loveseats, tufted brocades, fringed lampshades and acres of carved wood that fill the salon’s two parlors.
No matter. We can’t think of a better place to retreat when you want to take a quick break from the 21st century. Read more
Forget truffle oil. It isn’t even made from truffles, just like corn syrup isn’t sugar. But with truffle season in full swing until late December, you can revel in the real deal – “the diamond of the kitchen,” as the 18th-century French gastronome Brillat-Savarin called the fabled, if less poetic, fruiting body of the underground mushroom known for its earthy flavor and heady fragrance. Read more