Four Hotels for a Destination Dining Trip to New York City

[Flickr/ulterior epicure]


New York City has thousands of restaurants, but for one of the highest concentrations of high-end dining, Columbus Circle is hard to beat. Home to the massive Time Warner Center, the Midtown West destination houses Thomas Keller’s Per Se, the ostentatious sushi den Masa, the second location of the refined Italian restaurant A Voce, and the oft-forgotten Porter House New York, whose “rich, buttery” steak so impressed the former New York Times dining critic Frank Bruni. These hotels are close enough to all the restaurants that you could leave at 7:45 a.m. and still make your 8 p.m. reservation.


Mandarin Oriental: Actually inside the Time Warner Center, this luxurious property may not have the name recognition of The Plaza, but it certainly should. And if you’re already planning to spend that much money on dinner at Per Se – where the set menu is now clocking in at $275 per person – what’s another $1,000 for a room? 80 Columbus Circle.


Trump International Hotel and Tower: Across Columbus Circle from the Mandarin, this similarly swanky hotel has its very own high-end dining in house, in the form of Jean-Georges, one of only four three-Michelin Star restaurants in town. (Per Se and Masa across the way share the honor; Le Bernardin on 51st Street is the fourth.) One Central Park West.


Hudson: This stylish-if-slightly-sceney hotel is less than a block from the Time Warner restaurants. Its four bars provide options for those in the mood for a nightcap – or a drink to steel nerves against its “comically small” rooms. 356 West 58 St.


Six Columbus: Just down the street from the Hudson, this Thompson Hotel also suffers from small rooms. But the high design appeals to some; an outpost of New York’s wildly popular Blue Ribbon restaurant mini-chain also draws devotees. 6 Columbus Circle.