Park Hyatt New York

Can there really have not been a Park Hyatt in New York before? The first proper top-shelf luxury hotel to open in Manhattan in over a decade makes its home on the billionaires’ row that is West 57th Street, occupying the lower twenty-five floors of the One57 residential skyscraper, right across the street from Carnegie Hall. (The top floors are given over to private owners.) There’s a lot riding on the Park Hyatt New York, at least for Hyatt — is it worth the wait? Is it a truly flagship-worthy entry in this most demanding of cities?

Was there ever any doubt? If there’s one thing the Park Hyatt name stands for, it’s faultless execution — you don’t stay here for a radically new interpretation of the art of hospitality, you stay here simply to see it practiced at the highest level. The design, to that end, is impeccably tasteful rather than aggressively challenging, from the near-monumental architecture of the public spaces to the subtly modern in-room décor (the latter thanks to Yabu Pushelberg, for whom impeccably tasteful luxury hotels are by now second nature).

The rooms and suites are full of visual interest and tactile comfort, and come with as much modern technology as a savvy traveler can manage, and no more — this includes not just communications, connectivity and remote-control everything, but thoughtful touches like Nespresso coffee makers and Japanese-style Toto toilets as well. Views range from “quite good” to “tremendous,” the latter mostly in the suites, which’ll give you a little taste of what it feels like to be one of One57’s upper-floor residents.

In this part of Midtown, not exactly underserved in nightlife terms, there’s no need to stuff a hotel with half a dozen restaurants and a handful of bars. Better to focus on one of each, executed well. Bevy situates a unique light sculpture within a wood-and-mirrored pair of rooms featuring artisanal, New American grilled specialties, while the Living Room is a hotel bar (with all-day dining) that’s worthy of its setting. And the spa, naturally, goes a bit above and beyond as well — at Nalai they offer what they call an “atelier experience,” tailoring your treatment to your particular restorative needs. Sounds simple enough, until you think about how uncommon it actually is.