The Barnett

There’s no place in the American South better suited to the Ace aesthetic than New Orleans, perhaps the most colorful city in the country. And it’s hard to imagine a better building for the task than this Twenties Art Deco edifice, in the newly revitalized Warehouse District. Ace’s favorite designers, Roman and Williams, had plenty to work with here, a richly detailed backdrop for their trademark eclecticism. The result is predictable, in a good way: it’s more or less what you’d expect when America’s hippest hoteliers set up shop in one of America’s coolest cities.

Rooms come with high ceilings, an underrated benefit of industrial spaces, as well as a mix of vintage-style fixtures, authentic vintage furniture, and locally sourced artwork. Full-sized Smeg fridges come stocked with cocktail fixings, in an impressive display of tailoring the amenities to the hard-partying setting. Tivoli radios are included as a matter of course, and some of the better rooms have turntables and/or Martin acoustic guitars, in case you’re in the mood to stage your own private Jazz Fest.

Guest rooms are only part of the picture. Ace’s reputation is built, more than anything else, on genuinely lively, inviting public spaces. Josephine Estelle, the restaurant, isn’t just beautiful, it’s headed by James Beard nominees Andy Ticer and Michael Hudman, who masterfully marry Italian cooking and Southern flavors. The first Stumptown café in the South keeps guests and locals fueled up on third-wave coffee. And Three Keys, the hotel’s in-house music venue, puts on shows five nights a week in a stunning (and extremely well soundproofed) space. Safe to say that even if the Ace New Orleans is exactly what you expect it to be, it’ll be anything but dull.