As we breeze into the holiday home stretch, what better time to blow off an afternoon or evening with a fortifying drink, wintery exercise or seasonal visuals? Here are five hotels to check out even if you’re not checking in. Read more
Add edible art to the list of New York City products that won’t be outsourced this holiday season.
For the sixth year in a row, The Gingerbread Extravaganza outfits the atrium at Le Parker Meridien with a fleet of fragrant art-meets-cookie-dough sculptures encased in Plexiglas.
This year’s theme, Made in New York, is a reminder of how inimitable the city’s sights are, from King Kong and the Great White Way to Holly Golightly breakfasting at Tiffany’s, especially when rendered in gingerbread. Read more
Once again The Peninsula New York has proved you don’t have to eat pastry to enjoy it.
The showpiece of the hotel’s wildly decorative holiday lobby is a Snowpage family — roly, poly papa, mama and baby — cooked up from 90 pounds of white chocolate along with fondant (five pounds), sugar (three pounds) and a sprinkling of gold dust. Read more
This is shaking up to be the biggest year in memory for good eggs in New York.
First came the Fabrege Big Egg Hunt, which deposited 250 gigantic eggs decorated by artists, designers and bold-face names around town, including at hotels (it ends April 26). And as we zero in on Easter, hotel pastry chefs are proving, once again, that chocolate is a natural companion to the egg.
I always stop by The Peninsula New York when a holiday nears to see what’s new from executive pastry chef Deden Putra, who never lets a red-letter occasion go by without creating something witty, like life-size lollipop reindeer or a gigantic white chocolate snowman. Read more
Every year or so we’re treated to a citywide exhibition of large objects decorated by artists, like upright pianos or fiberglass cows. So why not eggs?
The Fabrege Big Egg Hunt, as you’ve no doubt heard, is on, with 250 gigantic egg sculptures adorned by artists, architects and creative types like Bruce Weber, Julian Schnabel, Jeff Koons, Carolina Herrera, Jacques Torres and William Wegman. Read more
I doubt I’m alone in saying I’ve been counting the hours, the minutes, the seconds to the arrival of spring.
By Siberian standards — but New York isn’t Irkutsk. And when you rack up the days that failed to break 30 degrees, couple them with more than 56 inches of snow and throw in a Polar Vortex or two, Winter 2013-14 was brutal.
Even if the snow doesn’t cease on March 20, we’ve crossed the seasonal divide.
To celebrate the official start of spring, I visited several midtown hotels known for their flowers, camera in hand. Looks like yellow is the color of spring this year.
Some of the most fetching hotel decorations in town come with messages that go beyond Happy Holidays and champion a good cause. Here’s a sampling. Read more
He’s a chocolate lover’s dream – a child-size snowman concocted almost entirely from white chocolate (the carrot nose is marzipan). He greets all who enter The Peninsula hotel through early January. Read more
“NYC Street Scene: the Holiday Bustle” by Butterfly Bakery.
The Gingerbread Extravaganza – the annual line-up of holiday sweet shacks at Le Parker Meridien – is among my favorite New York hotel traditions.
For the last five years, the hotel has invited local bakeries, restaurants and caterers to cook up the ultimate gingerbread creation built around a theme for display in the hotel’s mirror-lined 56th Street atrium. You can’t touch (or nibble) – the edible masterpieces are encased in Plexiglas boxes – but you can look at a line-up of clever constructions worthy of a nod from Cake Boss – or Gretel. Read more
Overlooking the parade finale from the lobby patio
When Macy’s changed the route of New York’s marquee parade from Seventh to Sixth Avenue in 2012 it proved a blow to visitors who like watching Hello Kitty & Company float by from a hotel room.
Seventh Avenue’s eight hotels overlooking the parade route dwarfed the five along Sixth Avenue and Central Park West, both in size and number. But this summer the Courtyard Marriott Manhattan/Herald Square added 167 rooms to the mix, many with direct views of Macy’s, the parade’s grand finale.
And this week brought more good news for parade lovers. Read more