City Club Hotel

Former gentleman's club turned luxury hotel, serving up style, serenity and top-dollar food just steps from Times Square and Broadway

Times Square isn't exactly short of hotels, so you know you're doing something right if Vogue editor Anna Wintour and heiress Lulu de Kwiatkowski are first in your visitors' book. Ardently preserving the cachet of the gentleman’s club it once was, City Club lavishes you with luxury. Lovingly restored mahogany-framed windows, antique books and circa-1900 maps make you feel like you've landed the keys to a distinguished home, not a 65-room hotel. The only giveaways are the Ted Baker-liveried staff, Daniel Boulud’s coveted cuisine in the kitchen - and Manhattan's fastidious foodies queuing to try it.

The lobby is deliberately diminutive (no grand entrances here), as is the mezzanine lounge, but there's plenty of space where you need it most (bedroom and bathroom). There's a pre-dinner drinks area at DB Bistro Moderne (till 11pm), but if you're after all-night cocktails, you've a million bars and the glitz of Midtown within stumbling distance... and a party-free zone to return to so you can get some serious sleep - in the city that never does.

Highs

• Central location with Fifth Avenue shopping, Times Square and Broadway's theatres just minutes away
• Daniel Boulud’s award-winning cuisine for breakfast, lunch and dinner (and room service, too)
• Top-notch extras: Frette bed linen, Dean & DeLuca gourmet treats, C.O. Bigelow products, handmade cookies at turndown
• We liked the natty all-in-one remote for lights, heating and entertainment
• And the shelf-fuls of novels to borrow, the free WiFi, and the NYTimes outside your door every morning

Lows

• The décor is beginning to look a little tired, but a rolling hotel-wide refurb is underway
• Some rooms look out over a less-than-glamorous internal lightwell, and those overlooking 44th Street can be a little noisy as they have original windows
• Small wardrobe area with limited hanging space and shelves
• The guest lounge is tiny: no cosy sofas nor a full bar, just a drinks area with tables and chairs