W Mexico City

Just the second W outside of the United States, the W Mexico City opened in October 2003 in the glitzy Polanco district — itself a sort of luxury hotel row, already home to the Inter-Continental and the J.W. Marriott. Next to these buttoned-up business hotels, the W plays the brash party-crasher, luxurious enough to hold its own, but almost mind-bendingly hip, for those accustomed to the five-star corporate chains.

Of course W is a chain too, and its success is due in no small part to precisely this savvy positioning; all the consistency and loyalty-building branding of a corporate hotel, with a carefully targeted dose of idiosyncratic cool. Its secret weapon, though, is a dedication to service that places it solidly in the big leagues — and, unsurprisingly, its first hotel in Mexico is no departure.

The design, though, is all Mexico—thankfully, hypermodern modern Mexico city, not some nightmare of pink stucco—with glass and sunlight everywhere, and in the guest rooms, black carpets and plenty of cherry red to balance the traditional boutique white. The look is, if we may indulge in some hotel hyperbole, sexy — perfectly fitting this town's steamy cosmopolitan image.

The service is there (Whatever/Whenever, as they are fond of saying), the design is smart, and the rooms are utterly modern, with the obligatory 29” TVs and wireless internet; the final piece of the puzzle is the nightlife. The bar at the W is embodiment of the modern lobby-bar culture, with decked-out locals trampling one another (elegantly, of course) for a chance to bump elbows with the visiting film stars and rockers. Every hotel of this kind claims that its bar is the hot spot in town — in this case it may actually be true.