Greenwich Hotel NYC

If the new Crosby Street Hotel is about fun, whimsy and buzz, the Greenwich is about having your own private club. Dimly lit, filled with eclectic antiques and original period light fixtures, its sign is so discreet I took three visits to find the door.

The lobby is tile, with potted palms, antique hand worked screens, leather club chairs, and British art pottery. It has the feeling of a latter day Explorers Club or the eccentric compilations of a very serious collector.

Each room is different-not cosy per se, as the floors are hard wood and the art is minimal-but supremely comfortable with hidden amenities and a box filled with childhood sweets. The tubs are Moroccan tile, and your hanging clothes are hidden in antique armoires.

Room service is provided by the restaurant off the lobby, Locanda Verde. It bills itself as “rustic Italian cuisine”-full flavored salads with hazelnuts and pear, ravioli with sage butter, or grinders with Italian sausage or a starter jalapeno/crab crostini. It is noisy, buzzy, and bistro -ish with a lively bar scene and some inventive house cocktails.

The downstairs spa and pool are romantic and Asian in feeling-lounge chairs of bamboo, stairs made of hand hewn wood and rope. The spa treatments are unique, and available only to the guests. The gym is very well equipped-I kept feeling like the next hot thing would be working out there to get in shape for a movie or two.

This is place to meet good friends, have a drink, play cards, not so much to see and be seen. The atmosphere is purposefully discreet and quiet.

The Crosby Street Hotel

The Crosby Hotel opened in the heart of New York’s Soho a bit over two months ago. The facade is white – dramatic – relentlessly chic in a neighborhood of red brick.

Opened by the darlings of the London Hotel trade, the Kemps, it has been an immediate success. Kit Kemp is known for her wide ranging reinterpretation of English design. She whimsically mixes tapestry chairs with pop art-ish paintings of Queen Elizabeth, 1960’s lamps, driftwood, and African artifacts. The effect is of a rather charming collection of an eccentric uncle in London. Walls are painted shades of saturated green, ceilings are very high, and the light is fabulous. Each room is individually decorated and different from the rest.

The restaurant is a combination of striped banquettes, a wall of telephones, and hanging lamps in hot luminescent colors. The food is an inventive remix of old standards – Maine lobster roll, fish and chips, club sandwich, steak tartare – and some “nouvelle” choices like sheep's milk cheese panini with roasted vegetables.

Service is surprisingly good for such a new hotel-the concierge department is very well versed, room service is smart and efficient, and the attitude is personal without sacrificing professionalism.