ME Madrid Reina Victoria

In typical Madrid style, the new boutique on the block is actually an update of a classic building, or perhaps even an update of an update. This gorgeous 1923 building housed first a rough crowd of bullfighters and associates, then a more sedate and upscale haute-luxury crowd; now it’s the ME Madrid, a glossy and stylish new-school boutique hotel, with all the design features and entertainment options that that tends to entail.

Actually, there could have been more — this was very nearly a Hard Rock, but the deal never quite took. In the end it’s more refined than the picture that name might conjure, but with the emphasis still pretty clearly on nightlife; it's a member of the Sol Meliá group, with a cocktail lounge on the ground floor and a rooftop bar impresario’d, if that’s the word we want, by the American nightclub maven Rande Gerber. The restaurant, meanwhile, is a bit lower-key, evoking the ambience of a living room or homey local bar. And the cuisine is homey as well, based on family recipes but utilizing the best local ingredients.

This being Spain, the party upstairs tends to go on pretty late into the night. Rooms, though, are anything but an afterthought. They’re sleek, a bit masculine, and well-appointed enough that one might be tempted to do some in-room entertaining — plasma TVs, CD and DVD libraries and iPod connections come standard. It all stops just short of absolute high luxury — showers, for example, rather than baths — but in a place like this the stunning rooftop skyline view is what matters.