The Conrad New York desperately wants to impress. As you ascend the escalator into the lobby atrium, a huge painting by Sol LeWitt – thick fronds of peacock blue on a turquoise background – towers above you on one side, while strange spoked ghost-like forms (or “veils” as they are named by their architect, Monica Ponce de Leon) reach down from the distant ceiling towards you. At the centre of this vast space is a Jetsons-style retro-futuristic lounge: sofas are uplit with a rim of neon lighting. As lobbies go, this one certainly has a sense of dynamic airiness, and as you head up to your room along corridors and peer through the veils, you get a sense that the entire place is connected organically by looped forms.
The rooms – all of them suites – are more standard, but spacious: there’s a lounge/office area separated from the bedroom by a bathroom, itself split between a toilet/vanity room and a large wet room with a powerful, properly drenching, ceiling shower. The palette is hotel-neutral but high-end, with fun touch-sensitive lights, a big television, and an extremely comfortable bed. The walls are enlivened with prints and drawings by well-known artists. Above the loo in my own suite, there’s an Elizabeth Peyton lithograph of Wills and Harry looking far more pensive and dapper than they do in real life as they gaze down on your ablutions. A large window in this west-facing room gives great views across the Hudson to the New Jersey shore.
On my visit, there was a block party going on, though since the whole block is owned by Goldman Sachs and the shops therefore chosen by them it’s hardly a bringing together of disparate worlds. Still there’s a good range of joints in which to grab what you need: a shake shack, a barbecue joint and a fine wine emporium are among those with samples on display here. I also get a foretaste of the Conrad’s own Chef Zamora’s cooking in the form of probably the best melt-in-the-mouth meatball I’ve ever eaten.
At dinner at the hotel’s Atrio restaurant a little later I get to taste more, starting with the Ahi Tuna Crudo. Nobody can accuse Anthony Zamora of stinting on his portions. I was expecting the fish to come carpaccioed or diced and spliced with the other ingredients. This was a slab. Not a bad piece of fish at all, but nowhere near as light as I was anticipating, and – I am surprised to say this as a lover of the clove – too much garlic to allow the full fish flavour through. My branzino main was simple and good – crisp and tender in the places it is supposed to be, and served with sweet, nutty Brussels sprout leaves and perfect crispy potatoes. There was the odd, unwelcome, singed pine-nut, but since the cooks had removed the butter sauce in which those pine nuts were supposed to wallow, to cater for my dairy allergy (about which they were extremely helpful), I can’t really complain. If the flatbreads that were served on the side are anything to go by, the stone-oven-cooked pizzas are good too.
Popsicles in prosecco at Loopy Doopy
It was towards the end of the meal that I discovered one of the downsides of the airport-like atrium. To reach the restrooms from the restaurant, one embarks on an epic journey across the cavernous space, feeling exposed when you least want to be – a small, scuttling (and jetlagged) creature. As if to compensate, the approach to the toilets is so low-lit that when I do reach my destination, I end up fumbling for the door.
And the fumbling is before I have my cocktail on the rooftop bar: Loopy Doopy. (I can see why they’ve named it after the LeWitt centrepiece, though the phrase has more of the Californian surf-shack than the Manhattan hotspot about it.) Up here on the sixteenth floor, you’ve got Lady Liberty, the Hudson dotted with little white boats, the coppery, late-summer sun glinting off office windows… what better time to order yourself a Blood Orange and Lychee Brooklyn Gin Popsicle in prosecco? With gin made just over the bridge, you can’t fault its food miles, and it tastes nicely boozy and sharp too. It is a proper playground-sized lolly though – hard to get your mouth around with decorum – and it all comes in a globe glass. Perhaps a flute with a finger popsicle might give a classier outline to what is very nice summer idea. The service is friendly but perhaps too laidback; it’s a good job you have the view to keep you occupied while you wait. Currently, the rooftop shuts in winter months, so it’s a seasonal perk.
A few short minutes from Wall Street, or a ten minute taxi- or subway ride to the shopping and fun at Greenwich Village or midtown, it’s an excellent place to stay for business or pleasure. You certainly get a lot of memorials for your buck. In a circular half-hour walk from the hotel, I encounter the Irish Hunger Memorial, the Jewish Holocaust Memorial, the NYC Police Memorial Wall, the World War II Memorial in Battery Park, and of course the new 9/11 Memorial.
So if you want history, recent and more removed, if you want more space to stretch than your average Manhattan hotel offers, and if you want a really good meatball, the Conrad is an excellent bet.
Conrad New York, 102 North End, New York NY 10282 USA
(212) 945 0100; conradnewyork.com