Alexis Gutter

Just opened in 2015, the Baccarat Hotel & Residences New York emits a vibe that’s at once modern and vintage. Its crisp, clean lines and dark-leaning aesthetic (of course with ample pops of the brand’s signature red) serve to highlight the facility’s eponymous crystal collection—including 15,000 pieces of stemware and 17 chandeliers. The hotel is the legacy brand’s first, and it doubles as a museum of sorts to the company, which King Louis XV of France founded in 1764. In short, if Marie Antoinette were a millennial, she’d stay at the Baccarat, where opulence reigns supreme. The 114 guest rooms (which range from 400 to 1,780 square feet) include sprawling windows, a luxe four-poster bed, a glass-walled shower and an extravagant take on the hotel minibar, which isn’t so “mini” here: The in-room red-enamel bar includes full-size bottles of many premium spirits and, unsurprisingly, Baccarat crystal glassware out of which guests can drink. And forget standard minibar snacks like peanuts and potato chips—this rendition is stocked with goodies from French bakery Laudurée. Hankering for some bubbles rather than what the contents of the minibar offer? Grab the bedside smart tablet and press the “champagne” button, which instructs you to pick a bottle from the hotel’s menu; after you do that, a chilled bottle is delivered to your room, alongside two crystal flutes, with expedience. The smart tablet also controls the room’s temperature, lighting, drapes, and it serves as the telephone,

While the Peninsula New York’s location is likely what attracts many guests, it is the hotel’s highbrow, homey touches that keep them there. During a holiday season visit, festively costumed carolers greeted guests from the atop the grand staircase. Adjacent to the check-in desk, the seasonal Peninsula Sweet Shoppe, open daily for young guests from 4 to 6pm, offers a free candy store for children to mix and match from different candy jars to create custom personal goody bags. Finally, en route to the elevators, guests encounter an enormous gingerbread house replica of the hotel. If the devil is in the details, the Peninsula New York is heaven on Earth. Climb the escalator to discover a plethora of goodies. Stop at one of the 235 guestrooms, which average at 400 square feet and top out at 3,000 sprawling square feet. Each room features an electronic system of control panels—specifically designed for the hotel—that allows visitors to control their environment easily and efficiently. Among other features, the wall-mounted panel controls temperature; the bedside panel controls the television, the air conditioner and whether you want privacy or your room cleaned; and the bathroom panel controls lighting (there are multiple options, including sexy mood lighting) and the wall-inset television directly over the bathtub. Each room also features a separate sitting area, apart from the comfortable bed, an oversized work desk, free Wi-Fi and in-room fax-machine capability, as well as plu

Check into Le Parker Meridien New York for a roof over your head and a pillow under your neck, but stay—as in, never even walk outside into midtown Manhattan—for all of the unique facilities within the main hotel. The guest-room accommodations are supremely lovely. Many rooms in the sky-high tower portion of the hotel overlook Central Park, a view which will likely both take your breath away and earn the jealousy of all your Instagram followers (Le Parker Meridien provides guests with free Wi-Fi). But after you’re finished ogling the scene from your window, rinse off in the bathtub shower, turn off your 46-inch flatscreen TV, and go explore the rest of the hotel’s offerings. Adjacent to the concierge counter, find a single, easy-to-miss neon burger sign that’s cheekily half-hidden behind a floor-to-ceiling curtain. Approach the sign and turn a corner to transport yourself from the swank and modern Le Parker Meridien lobby into a wood-paneled dive from yesteryear: the Burger Joint, which, unsurprisingly, serves classic burger-joint fare (single or double cheeseburgers with “the works” of toppings, fries, shakes, beer, wine). For a nightcap, head to Nave, the bar near the hotel’s north entrance with high ceilings, red-velvet curtains and candles that give it a moody feeling, perfect for nighttime cocktails or a morning latte. And after that latte in the morning, if you don’t have brunch at the iconic Norma’s, you’ve made a grave mistake. Here, quantity doesn’t compromise qualit

In most New York places, space is hard to come by. So it’s easy to see how the sprawling rooms and high ceilings can be added to the long list of amenities at the Four Seasons Hotel New York. Hike the palatial marble-floored path through the lobby, past the concierge counter to the check-in desk. There, before giving you your room key, an accommodating staff member asks if you prefer a complimentary New York Times, Wall Street Journal or New York Post to wait outside your guest-room door in the morning—if you’re not sure, you’re welcome to select all three. Take the elevator down to the spa level to enjoy the complementary steam room and fitness center, which is stocked with both chilled and room-temperature bottles of water, fruit and sports drinks, all freely available. With short notice, the spa is able to reserve guests a personal trainer for the fitness center, hair stylists and makeup artists, and massage appointments. Keep riding the serenity wave up into the contoured deep soaking tub in your guest room while watching your favorite program on the in-bathroom flat screen TV. Or, enjoy the Bvlgari toiletries in the glass-enclosed shower. Afterward, slip into your plush robe, press a button on the blonde wood wall paneling to open the drapes, and take in the panoramic city views that either highlight the grand skyscrapers of Midtown or the iconic green respite of Central Park. Back on the ground floor, enjoy Four Seasons Hotel New York's dining facilities: For breakfast,

At the Plaza Hotel, all that glitters is gold. Literally. From chair legs and mirror frames to the bathrooms of each guest room and suite, the details are gilded with 24-carat gold plating. It’s classy and opulent and reminiscent of another time—but then again, it’s the Plaza. The midtown hotel has been a New York icon, offering first-rate lodging since 1907. Throughout the years and after many renovations, the National Historic Landmark’s guest list has been a who’s who of celebs, from the Beatles to Christian Dior, and the backdrop for many cultural works like The Great Gatsby and Eloise at the Plaza. As soon as you enter the main doors, the fresh scent of gardenias takes you far away from the all-too-close scent of Central Park’s horse-drawn carriages. A friendly staff is waiting to greet you in the main lobby under a magnificent crystal chandelier. Head toward check-in and pass the stairs that ascend to the moody Rose Club lounge, where you can enjoy an expertly crafted cocktail, like the King Basil ($24)—which combines the herb with cucumber, gin, lillet and orange bitters—on a burgundy tufted-velvet couch. Stay on the ground floor for the lobby-adjacent Champagne Bar, where you can sip elegant bubbles and delight in caviar while taking in the regal atmosphere. The Palm Court, also on the main floor, is well known for its high-tea service, but the restaurant cheekily undersells its evening-fare menu by placing the petite three pages of food behind an extensive drinks me

By name alone, Bus Stop Cafe evokes a no-frills neighborhood greasy spoon; a place that’s full of commuters hastily grabbing a quick bite that’s dependably just fine before hustling to catch a bus (or a train or a plane or a cab). That vignette does not capture the Parisian-bistro essence of Bus Stop Cafe, which likely gets its name from being located near a, you guessed it, bus stop in the heart of the West Village. The hefty, wide-ranging menu—which includes an entire page of served-all-day breakfast options like warm banana-walnut pancakes ($12), a jalepeño-avocado omelette ($13.75) and a fully loaded bagel-and-lox sandwich ($13.75)—is where Bus Stop’s diner likeness starts and ends. The ample sidewalk seating hugs the perimeter of the quaint, dimly lit corner restaurant’s street-facing walls. The rustic wooden two-tops are each bedecked with a small vase and flower, and the waitstaff’s informed but not overbearing friendliness elicits the feeling of idling at a European bistro; it’s a perfect place to have an intimidate date, dine alone as you read or simple watch passersby while sipping a glass of vino ($9 to $10.75). For dinner, appetizers run the gamut from savory beef nachos ($13.75) to a cocktail of fresh, succulent shrimp ($12.75 for four pieces), while homemade soups (4.75 to $5.75, or complimentary with an entrée) like chicken or French onion are simple and comforting. All regular-menu entrées, like a prime-cut sirloin steak with fresh vegetables and potatoes, and

Tucked in the back of the seafood section at Chelsea Market, this cozy nook nods to two types of lobsters: a cull lobster, which has only one claw, and a pistol lobster, which has no claws. Name notwithstanding, patrons of Cull & Pistol Oyster Bar, a sister venue to the next-door Lobster Place, need not worry about there being enough crustacean meat to go around here as well. Diners tuck into heaping platters of seafood at snug, wooden tables in the narrow-but-warm single-aisle dining room. With a handful of Edison-style lightbulbs strung over the bar and candles behind the expansive bench, decoration here is minimal, promising not to distract your appetite. Food is the star of the operation.The raw-bar menu—which comes with a golf pencil for customers to indicate the number of each per-item order they want—includes a dozen types of succulent oysters and clams, flavorful and sizable Jonah crab claws that seem a bargain at $3 a pop, and a variety of towers that include different combinations and quantities of offerings.Highlights of the well-executed dinner menu include an inventive shrimp-shitake toast appetizer ($9), which layers meat and mushroom with fiery red chili, fresh scallion and lemon in a garlic aioli atop soft-yet-crusty ciabatta; and a seared sea scallop number ($27), which plates five of the tender medallions, brushed with a savory lobster-broth reduction, on a bed of maitake mushrooms, Swiss chard and sweet-potato puree. But the clear pièce de résistance is the

Snap. Crackle. Pop. These are sounds I don’t want to hear from your grossly agape mouth while you shovel in your morning cereal. RECOMMENDED: See more New York rants Perhaps living in NYC—densely populated with humans and all their indecorous habits—is a bad idea for anyone who suffers from misophonia, the typically self-diagnosed (but gravely real) hatred of noises like chewing and sniffling. It’s no secret that, generally, each city dweller lives in a few-hundred-square-foot space, often shared with other people who probably snore, in an apartment building that almost certainly has leaky pipes, underneath tenants who obviously have a yappy dog. Yet month after month, we pay our rent, and year after year, we renew our lease just to continue traveling to work via the same subway cars overcrowded with mouth breathers, gum crackers and oafs who listen to music through earbuds that might as well be surround-sound speakers. Sure, it’s on us sufferers of this rage-inducing condition to find coping mechanisms, which is why I listen to white noise for hours on end, like a psychopath, to mask the noise of that salad being crunched, that soup being slurped, those carrot sticks being gnawed. But people, since every smack of your lips registers to my ears as a pointy nail dragging down a long chalkboard, can you just close your trap? I remember learning “chew with your mouth shut” around the same time as “tell the truth.” Here’s the truth: Petting-zoo table manners make me want to spur

“You know how to take the reservation. You just don’t know how to hold the reservation. And that’s really the most important part of the reservation: the holding.” Can we all agree that Jerry Seinfeld is a straight-up hero for speaking this truth? In this instance, Seinfeld’s admonishment is directed at a rental-car–company employee, but too many of us know the same reservation mishegas holds true in the restaurant industry. RECOMMENDED: See more New York rants I’m sick of standing around a two-by-five-foot entry space with my starving friends 45 minutes after our set reservation time. Why does this keep happening? I understand there’s more to rezzies than clicking a button on OpenTable, arriving within 10 minutes of the seating time and leaving an hour and a half later, full and happy. For example, there’s no predicting which two-top on a third date is going to order a second nightcap; and obviously, a waiter can’t ask the five-top that paid the bill a half hour ago to vacate the premises. After all, restaurants are like a spa for the stomach: Customers pay a price in exchange for the relaxing, enjoyable experience of being served and doing no work. So meet me halfway, restaurants of New York! When I ask if something can be done, offer me appetizers and a stiff drink to take the edge off my hangry rage. Or at the very least, let me order my meal before I’m seated, because at this point, you better believe I don’t need a few minutes to look over the menu; I have that sucker m

This morning ClassPass announced that monthly prices for unlimited classes will go up from $125 to $190 for existing members and to $200 for new members starting in June. This 35 percent price surge for unlimited classes—on the heels of a 20 percent jump last summer—comes out to an additional $780 per year. At that price, it’s now pretty much on par with Equinox, which is generally considered the luxury fitness option—and one that doesn’t fit within everyone’s budget. So unsurprisingly, the announcement left members’ blood boiling, and not in an elevated-heart-rate-interval-training way:   My feelings about @classpass right now #classpass #nope pic.twitter.com/kQyp0kCM9p — Madeline O'Connor (@Madeline_OC) April 27, 2016 Live coverage of @Equinox shareholders meeting right now #classpass pic.twitter.com/kcUUEJqu6g — Sophie Vershbow (@svershbow) April 27, 2016 #CLASSPASS pic.twitter.com/IEmOJ96ByG — Spencer Schutte (@spencerschutte) April 27, 2016 #classpass is already ruining my figure after 2 hours of this announcement 😫 pic.twitter.com/riUrjZvivE — Ahleeshuh (@Alicington) April 27, 2016     The folks at ClassPass are likely aware that hell hath no fury like a fitness-goer-on-a-budget scorned, which is perhaps why they decided to offer a “Core” membership of 10 classes for $125. This option works out to 2.5 classes per week, which is not quite enough to get anyone washboard abs or buns of steel. It is, however, $12.50 per class—still considerably less pricey than man