7 New U.S. Hotels With A Serious Thing For Good Food And Drink
Planning vacations around dining experiences is how we like to travel, with ethnic food stalls, impossible-to-book tasting menu reservations and craft cocktail bars all necessities as much as the guidebook staples — museums, tall buildings, zoos. Luckily, our gustatory yearnings can now dictate where we shack up on such adventures. Along with worthy guestrooms, these new food-focused hotels promise stellar on-premise food — and dining rooms full of equally pleased locals.
Situated in a circa-1964 building in Los Angeles's energetic bibimbap– and karaoke-fueled Koreatown, the just-opened Line Hotel is the latest project from the Sydell Group — the dudes who made $79 foie gras and truffle-stuffed chicken a reality at the NoMad in New York. Currently there are only the art-filled rooms to gawk over, but soon Kogi BBQ Taco Truck guru Roy Choi will unveil POT, his ode to the Korean hot pot. Beyond the blood soup and barbecue, there will also be a café dispensing hot buns, a classic hotel bar and come spring, Commissary, Choi's poolside greenhouse restaurant. The Houston Brothers' forthcoming discreet Speek promises finely wrought cocktails.
The latest Ace Hotel, located in the old United Artists Building in downtown Los Angeles, flaunts the same nostalgic imprint as its siblings in Seattle, Portland, New York and Palm Springs. The rooms — and a coffee bar — are now ready for guests, yet in a few weeks the team from tiny Brooklyn restaurant Five Leaves will debut L.A. Chapter, their West Coast rendition of farm-to-table cooking, helmed by the Standard Downtown's former executive chef Micah Fields.
There are mosaic walk-in showers and a pool table at Hotel Zetta Viceroy Hotels and Resorts' urban crash pad in San Francisco's almost-SoMa neighborhood. There is also British brasserie, the Cavalier, where executive chef Jennifer Puccio — who runs the kitchens at Park Tavern and Marlowe — makes duck confit–wrapped Scotch eggs and fish and chips with malt vinegar aioli. For a more low-key evening, craft beer and baked Brie await at S&R Lounge.
Another of the hotel group's newcomers is Viceroy New York, brightening Midtown's blossoming dining scene with the black-and-white-tiled Kingside. Here, Food Republic friend Marc Murphy, of Landmarc and Ditch Plains fame, entertains diners with a mighty raw bar, hay-aged Pecorino toast and two-person ribeye with bone marrow. Settle into one of the cushy corner booths with the Smokey Santillana (tequila, mezcal, vanilla and mole bitters), one of Scott Gerber's boozy creations that will leave you grateful for keys to one of the leather-accented rooms above.
Colorful suites at the apartment-like, extended-stay hotel The William, in the shadow of Grand Central Terminal, are tricked out with kitchenettes. But those long-term transients who don't want to wash dishes can make their way downstairs to the Peacock. Run by Jason Hicks and Yves Jadot of the British pub Jones Wood Foundry, the Peacock is the fancier lair, where Englishman Robert Aikens makes slow-braised veal shanks with onion confit that guests eat underneath crystal chandeliers. The Shakespeare, a subterranean pub that looks like it was plucked straight out of Camden, is swathed in dark wood — a fitting backdrop for Aikens' beans and fried eggs on hot-buttered toast. A Southside nightcap is hard to resist in the elegant Library.
Paul Kahan, the revered chef behind Chicago hotspots such as Blackbird, avec and Big Star, proves he has a knack for Italian seafood, too, at the Gold Coast's Nico Osteria, inside the Thompson Chicago. The squid ink–cloaked bucatini and Ligurian-style fish stew shine at the restaurant, and the in-room dining menu's polenta with parmesan and olive oil, along with hazelnut pesto king crab legs, make it easy to stay in for the night.
At the kitschy Lone Star Court in Austin, Texas — located in the mixed-use development the Domain — guests sleep on beds with retro metal headboards alongside deer horn lamps. When guests get hungry, they hit the Water Trough for Cajun-spiced pork ribs with apple-jalapeno slaw and chipotle BBQ, or tacos packed with brisket smoked in the middle of the courtyard by executive chef Paul Nelson. The Feed Store, the property's own gleaming food truck, turns out Texan classics like chili-Frito pie.
The Line (Los Angeles): 3515 Wilshire Boulevard, 213-381-7411, thelinehotel.com; eatatpot.com
The Ace Hotel Downtown Los Angeles: 929 South Broadway, 213-623-3233, acehotel.com
Hotel Zetta (San Francisco): 55 5th Street, 415-543-8555, viceroyhotelgroup.com; cavaliersf.com
Viceroy New York: 120 W. 57th Street, 212-830-8000, viceroyhotelgroup.com; kingside-restaurant.com
The William (NYC): 24 E. 39th Street, 646-922-8600, thewilliamnyc.com, thepeacocknyc.com
Thompson Chicago: 21 E. Bellevue, 312-266-2100, thompsonchicago.com; nicoosteria.com
Lone Star Court (Austin, TX): 10901 Domain Drive, 512-836-3030, lonestarcourt.com