Alvear Art Hotel

Here’s the surprising thing about the Alvear Art Hotel: in a town whose boutique hoteliers are all too often blind to everything beyond the visual, the Alvear is about as well-rounded a hotel as you’ll find anywhere, in Buenos Aires or otherwise. It’s proof that white walls and stripped-down rooms alone do not a “design hotel” make; function is as crucial as form. It’s a gorgeous hotel, to be sure — its airy, free-flowing public spaces all happy conspiracies of fine art, sunlight and gleaming marble — but it’s also a hotel where the rooms are quiet, the beds are dreamy and the bathrooms are big and bright. And where a concierge in a pressed black suit can point you to a good nearby bar or an up-and-coming restaurant without making you feel like you shouldn’t have to ask.

The rooms are spacious and sunny, with at least as much attention paid to the tactile — Egyptian cotton sheets, deep marble baths, plush rugs and textured walls — as to the visual. Each also comes with free wi-fi and a work desk — not the sexiest details, but then that’s the point: the fundamentals underlie all the rest. Combine that with a well-equipped business center, an elegant bar that feels made for an after-work drink, and a location a few minutes from the city’s financial center, and, for a place billed as an art hotel, it’s a surprisingly good choice for business travel.

That we’ve gotten this far without mentioning that the Alvear Art Hotel is an offshoot of what’s often considered the best hotel in town, the nearby Alvear Palace, surely says something about the newcomer’s own merit. It’s by no means a clone of its older sibling (or its rich great aunt, is maybe the better metaphor), as the look and feel is decidedly more contemporary. Still, the Alvear polish shines through.