No matter what's trending in fashion, the New York City uniform has remained constant — any cut, any style, but make it black. And the same has long been true of Manhattan hotels, with slick onyx, creamy white and neutral linens serving as reliable antidotes to the city's sensory overload.
Not anymore.
"If you think about what the consumer wants today, they don't want beige," says Elizabeth Mullins, managing director of the Fifth Avenue Hotel and chief operating officer of its parent company, Flâneur Hospitality. "They want a hotel with soul."
Mullins, a veteran of Ritz-Carlton and the Walt Disney Co., says this has been true ever since the pandemic left people wanting to reawaken their senses and "feel something" along their travels. Most commonly, they want to feel a sense of place. "But it's hard to evoke much of anything when you're beige."
The good news is that with New York hotels suddenly awash in saturated hues, there's no more room for a sleepy hotel stay. Here's a look at the brightest, splashiest openings from Tribeca to Union Square and NoMad.
The Fifth Avenue Hotel
This former Gilded Age mansion on 28th Street and Fifth Avenue is a shockingly rare example of low-rise opulence smack in the middle of the NoMad neighborhood, just down the street from the Ned, Ace and Ritz-Carlton hotels. But this is less the preserved home of a turn-of-the-century tycoon and more of a fun-filled portal into Manhattan's modern wonderland.
If you don't like judging a book by its cover, don't judge this hotel by its traditionally styled lobby, with its elegantly draped double-height windows and crystal chandeliers. But if you must, form your opinion from the contents of two vintage hutches against the back wall: The cheeky curiosities include a single goldfish cracker in a "plastic baggie" made from crystal.
That sense of humor is a through line for this kaleidoscopic hotel, fashioned with all sorts of winks and nods by the ever-whimsical designer Martin Brudnizki. In one hallway is a gallery wall of framed eyes—some painted, some drawn, some googly.
Its 153 rooms feature martini carts piled high with full-size spirits and fresh-baked lemon cookies, all from chef Andrew Carmellini, who runs the excellent Café Carmellini restaurant downstairs. Mercury glass panels behind the headboards create a brilliant optical illusion: They reflect the twinkle of star-shaped ceiling lights, making each room feel twice its actual size.
Don't miss a nightcap at the ground-floor Portrait Bar. Now that the Library Bar at the former NoMad hotel is a members-only space for the Ned, this is the neighborhood's "it" spot for throwback glamor, complete with coffered ceilings and white-tuxedoed barkeeps. Rooms from $709
The Warren Street Hotel
Designer Kit Kemp is the OG preacher of "anything but beige," and her third New York City property for Firmdale Hotels is every bit as hypersaturated and pattern-happy as its predecessors, the Whitby and Crosby Street.
The lobby can cure jet lag with its bursts of mustard yellow, kelly green and royal blue. Yet the double-paned, floor-to-ceiling windows in the rooms—with spectacular downtown vantages toward One World Trade or Herzog & de Meuron's "Jenga building"—make for pin drop quiet sleep when you need it.
For fans of the UK-based brand (and there are many), the overall look will be familiar: dramatically oversize headboards and upholstered dress forms in mix-and-match patterns are Kemp's indispensable signatures.
The same is growing true about other design tropes she's adapted here, such as long displays of white porcelain pots adorned with mushrooms and fairies in glowing, red-painted nooks, or the colorblock leather stools at the bar. If it's slightly formulaic by now, there's a reason for that: The effect is still mesmerizing.
But now, Kemp is adding her daughters' stamps to the mix. The cheekiest rooms are the work of Minnie Kemp: They include throw pillows with a textile featuring strands of spaghetti threaded through the tines of a fork—a bright blue-and-yellow pattern with tiny red sauce splotches.
Tossed against a zany floral headboard, it's as bold as design statements get. In true Firmdale fashion, it works spectacularly. Rooms from $745.
Fouquet's New York
Another Brudnizki special is this French-inflected 97-room gem on Greenwich Street, which has already earned two Michelin Keys and whose pink and green color palette was inspired by a dainty box of macarons. But that doesn't mean the hotel is entirely demure.
By one central staircase you'll find a giant, bedazzled sculpture of a gorilla wearing a Team USA-inspired hat and holding the Eiffel Tower in its clenched fist. Custom toile wallpaper in the rooms sport New York street scenes interspersed with cheeky drawings of pigeons snatching croissants. (It's a permanent installation by France-based contemporary sculptor Eddy Maniez.)
