When The Surrey hotel reopened under the Corinthia umbrella, there was an air of confusion over its choice of interior designer.
Martin Brudnizki, lauded for his use of colour, texture and pattern — normally all in one go — didn’t seem like a natural fit for a hotel group that tended to skew towards the beige end of the paint chart.
The result is stupendous: richly decorated bedrooms, in delectable shades of lemon, vanilla and honey, that seemingly invite you to touch everything. Think raspy boucle and silk seagrass wallpapers, smooth-as-butter leather drawer liners and reeded-glass light fittings.
There’s an outpost of Casa Tua on the ground floor (the popular American chain regularly has people tearing their hair out over a reservation) and a bijou, but sensational spa featuring excellent Sisley treatments, an outdoor yoga deck and my new favourite hotel amenity, a salt room.
The rooms
The Bethesda Grandeur Suite is named after the terrace and fountain of the same name in Central Park. Construction of them occurred during the American Civil War.
The Surrey sits in close proximity to two Upper East Side hotel doyennes, The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel, and The Mark Hotel; together they cup East 76th Street and East 77th Street in a sort of horse shoe shape.
All three are fantastic in their own right, but despite looking very similar at first glance, there are in fact subtle differences that will appeal to, or repel, different travellers.
The Carlyle is New York’s ageing beauty — recently renovated, but most definitely still wedded, pleasingly, to its Art Deco roots. The Mark is all restrained elegance with streaks of quirky character (for example: the hot dog cart outside the front door) occasionally peeing through. The Surrey — the new kid on the block — is more overtly contemporary and flashier and nowhere is this more evident than in the jewel box-like rooms.
The textured bedrooms, described above, are beautiful, but given the chance you should really ask for one of the four signature suites. They’re called Pine Bank Bridge Suite, Bethesda Grandeur Suite, Greywacke Heritage Suite, and The Surrey Suite and each one pays homage to one of Central Park’s iconic sites.
Greywacke, close to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, is a Sarecenic-style bridge with a central pointed arch and lined in a type of sandstone of the same name and red brick. The one-bedroom suite uses terracotta tones to mimic those materials and geometric details inspired by the carvings and patterns that are a core component of Sarecenic style.
My favourite is the Bethesda Grandeur Suite — whose silky walls remind me of lemon posset pudding. There’s a marble bathroom with double vanity and marble bath, a butler’s pantry and glass-enclosed fireplace.
Eating and drinking
Casa Tua means ‘your home’ in Italian and it has wildly popular outposts in Miami, Aspen, Paris and, of course, New York. The food is, unsurprisingly, inspired by traditional Italian fare, and though I do whip up a lot of pastas, risotto and roast chickens in my own home,I can assure you that they do it to a better standard and much more elegantly here (on pretty heart motif china). I’d argue that it’s probably better than whatever you’re cooking in your own home, too.
Snagging a reservation can be tricky — when I stayed, we didn’t sit down at our table until 9pm (anyone who knows will can confirm that I’m normally in bed by then) — so ask the hotel to make a booking for you when you confirm your room.
Breakfast — a highlight — is served in the Casa Tua restaurant, too; there’s a separate ‘Lounge’ (above), open all day, for daytime coffees, light lunches and late night martinis.
How they’ll keep you busy
The spa is The Surrey’s hidden gem — and though it's tiny it knows how to pack a punch where it matters.
As well as a fitness centre, two treatment rooms, a steam room, sauna, salt relaxation room and sensorial shower, there’s a wooden terrace that seemingly appears out of nowhere with a bird’s eye view of the handsome neighbourhood. In the warmer months, the hotel organises yoga classes on it — and there was talk of a smoothie bar.
What else to do while you’re here
The Surrey is less than ten minutes on foot from The Frick which reopened earlier this year, following an extensive programme of refurbishment works, to raptuous applause. Owen Holmes, our man on the ground in New York, described it as ‘momentousness’.
For more inspiration, take a look at our guide to Manhattan.
Who’s it for?
Couples.
What gives it the ‘wow’ factor?
The use of pattern and texture in the bedrooms. Martin has outdone himself.
The one thing we’d change
The art on display in the bedrooms and communal areas — there didn’t appear to be a strong curatorial direction.
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