Crosby Street Hotel
Crosby Street Hotel is an antidote to the pared-down, monochrome minimalism which has become so popular in New York City hotels.

The Hotel’s 86 rooms and suites are a clever mix of modern and vintage styling. Eclectic pairings of commissioned art and sculpture with antique pieces combine in such a way that the hotel brings a real vibrancy of colour to this SoHo address.

Rooms are bright and luxurious, with granite bathrooms and exclusive Miller Harris toiletries. They’re also a good size by Manhattan standards, and have birds-eye views of SoHo life from the floor-to-ceiling windows. The 360-degree views of the Manhattan skyline from the top-floor suites are absolutely spectacular.

Beyond the bar and restaurant is a peaceful courtyard garden. Food in the restaurant is modern New York brasserie fare – think spaghetti squash with fried duck egg – served up to a glamorous, celebrity-studded clientele against an ultra-stylish backdrop.

Doubles from £299, room only

79 Crosby Street, New York City, NY 10012
T: 212 226 6400

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The Bowery
The Bowery arrived, fairy godmother-like, in 2007 from Sean Macpherson and Eric Goode of Waverly Inn fame. With its classic red brick facade and metal canopies, it feels like old New York. Then you walk into the lobby and all hell breaks loose in a fabulous mess of silk palm trees, dark wood panelling, and straight-from-a-country-pile sofas.

The rooms are light bright, with factory-style windows offering uninterrupted views of the city below (with the north-facing ones looking out onto the Empire State Building). The loft styling continues with dark wood floors and ceiling fans, while Persian rugs, velvet chairs and terracotta throws appear decadently in the lobby.

It might be hard to drag yourself away from the marble-slab bathroom with its cult C.O. Bigelow apothecary products, but the food and people-watching at the hotel’s restaurant, Gemma, is definitely worth it. The eponymous cocktail also comes highly recommended (a potent gin, champagne and bitters brew).

Doubles from £272, room only

335 Bowery, New York City, NY 10003
Tel: 212 505 9100

The Bryant Hotel
Grand Gothic revival on the outside, stripped-back minimalism on the inside, the is a year-round New York institution. Twice a year, though, it turns into one of New York's Fashion Week HQ, and this stylish 25-storey midtown hotel (originally the historic American Radiator Building whose imposing black and gold gothic exterior is still intact) becomes a full-on VIP zone.

The fashion pack return again and again for 400 thread-count Egyptian cotton, cashmere throws and modern minimalism, transforming the 23rd floor penthouses into editors’ and models’ private lounges. White walls, leather sofas and Travertine marble bathrooms give the rooms a light and spacious feel – a hard-to-come by attribute which makes them like gold dust in the Big Apple.

After sightseeing, throw on your highest heels and ride the elevator down to its crypt-like Cellar Bar – hotel residents get to skip the queue, which is always round the block come midnight.

Doubles from £178, room only

40 West 40th Street, New York City, NY 10018
Tel: 212 869 0100

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Soho House New York

While the rest of the Meatpacking District falls apart thanks to unhip New Jersey tourists and the hedge-funders with their square-toed loafers, Soho House New York remains a safe haven of shameless exclusivity. Once you’re through the doors, signed in at reception, and safely in the dark, leather-padded lifts heading upwards, all is well with the world.

Even the smallest rooms are bigger than you’ll find in most New York hotels. If you upgrade to a Playhouse, you’ll be living the Elle Deco dream with French armoires, stencils on the walls and immense, ornate, hand-carved beds. The bathrooms are close to perfection, from the rainforest shower-heads to the full-sized Cowshed body products. These are rooms that beg for breakfast in bed, dressed in a big fluffy bathrobe.

As a hotel, it can be all things to all people: if you’re here on business, it’s a great place for meetings and to set up a laptop. If you’re here for fun or romance, it’s also intimate and sexy, and French martinis are always on call – this is a hotel that’s as designed for hedonism as it is handsome.

Doubles from £300, room only

29-35 9th Avenue, New York City, 10014
T: 212 627 9800

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The Mercer

The Mercer has carved a decade ‘n’ longer niche for itself as the most luxe and glamorous, often long-stay, hideaway for movie stars and the catwalk cognoscenti in downtown Manhattan.

Few have anything but rapturous praise for The Mercer experience (except maybe notorious phone-tosser Russell Crowe), and with good reason: the service is faultless, friendly and seems to second-guess you. It looks utterly gorgeous – absolutely contemporary but pared down and masculine, without being at all ‘trendy’ – and it’s exactly where you want to be (Balazs should know, his own loft faces the hotel). Its Vongerichten restaurant, (The Mercer) Kitchen has never gone out of vogue.

The huge exposed-brick work, wood-floored, iron-pillared studios and suites have a profoundly, seductive at-home feel, with full-sized kitchens, and oversized tubs that allow for bubble baths a deux. The beds, with 400-thread count Frette linen, are an experience in themselves. The attitude of the staff, from check-in to room service, and the sense of privacy, makes you feel like you’re staying in the most lavish serviced apartments in the city, rather than a hotel.

While plenty of other aggressively au courant boutique hotels have opened up shop in SoHo, no one has – as yet – eclipsed The Mercer in terms of hitting the right note for such a mature balance of high design and comfort.

Doubles from £310, room only

147 Mercer Street, New York City, NY 10012
Tel 212 966 6060

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Check out our full collection of places to stay in New York. Or do the city the ELLE way with our New York guide.