The Bryant Park Hotel

Anyone with a flagging libido should book into the Bryant Park Hotel for a few nights. It oozes sex appeal. But first, let’s talk about the hotel’s location – so important in New York City, where your neighborhood can define your trip. This designer hotel is smack bang in the middle of midtown, with the theatres of Broadway a ten-minute stroll away, the Empire State Building six blocks round the corner, and Central Park a brisk 20-minute walk. Fifth Avenue’s credit-card-swiping opportunities are five minutes uptown. The gibbering madness of Times Square lies three blocks up.

North-facing rooms of this Manhattan boutque hotel overlook Bryant Park and the New York Library. Built around 1900, the grand library is one of the city’s less obvious highlights; and if you think you recognise its imposing Gothical-Revival-style facade, you probably have seen it before –  in Ghostbusters. The Bryant Park Grill over the street in the park itself is the fun outdoor venue where we decided to start our dirty weekend – with an afternoon cocktail, obviously. The park itself is a lawn about the size of two tennis courts, surrounded by pretty stonework and green metal chairs and tables. We're in good company, sitting among youngsters flirting over beer and an Eighties pop soundtrack we're already feeling like we're on holiday, even if recently it became my hometown.

After a noisy day in the city that never shuts up, let alone sleeps, my girlfriend and I are on the weary side. But the hotel’s aphrodisiac qualities seem pretty potent. The lobby is paved with sexy, shiny black marble; everything is rouge and noir and polished. The staff are clad in black. The lifts are lined with padded leather, and barely lit but for two red spotlights that give us a faint impression of being on stage at a burlesque club. God, even the buttons in the lift are suggestive.

We're lucky to be staying in a Bryant Park Suite on the 21st floor, which houses only three suites. From a lounge with sofa and desk and plasma-screen TV, double doors lead to a bedroom and big bathroom with tub and shower. It's actually huge for Manhattan. The dark brown and lilac colours feed us with instant calm, and the hardwood floors are pleasingly contemporary. There’s plenty more modern stuff we like: another plasma TV in the bedroom, Bose stereo and Bose SoundDock for our iPods (perfect to rev up with if you plan on hitting their DJ bar). Leaning against the wall in the corner is a massive purple sausage for leaning on in bed. Or, of course, whacking one another, gladiator-style, which is what we did. After a relaxing soak in our Olympic-sized tub, we shuffle round the room going ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’, dressed in cashmere robes so snuggly we want to wear them to dinner that night. I'm sure in this city if we put our minds to it we could find somewhere that it's de rigeur, but until then we head for the nearest hotspot.

We have a table booked at Koi, the sushi restaurant adjoining the hotel. The long, black marble pathways between the tables feel like a sort of catwalk, and you just know everyone is checking out everyone else. That's part of the fun. It's an elegant place, with lots of mahogany, twinkly lights and artworks. During New York Fashion Week (which holds shows in the park itself) the place is jammed with models and their tanned European boyfriends in blazers, jeans and loafers – no socks, of course. The night we eat here (we're glad we decided against those cashmere robes in the end), Kelly Osbourne is dining with Nicole Richie while Rachel Hunter gossips with pals at a nearby table. As I point it out to my Mrs Smith of the moment, she remarks something along the lines of 'You can take the man out of his OK! magazine office, but you can't take the celeb-obsessed magazine out of the man,' etc. Although unlike most of the A-list guests or fashionista who visit here, we eat enough sushi to feed a family of killer whales for a week.

For after-dinner drinks, the logical path is down to this boutique hotel’s Cellar Bar. After being barked at for not having the correct hand stamp (us Brits can never quite get used to that New Yoika brusqueness; mind you, we're the folk who usually apologise to the person who just stepped on our foot) and eventually after having been directed back outside the hotel to the bouncer on the main door, we get in. At least it lends the air that we've gone to a club for the night rather than merely strolled down to the bottom of the building we're staying in. At the risk of sounding a little like an old fogey though, the first thing that hits us is the loud music – great if you've had nine vodka martinis but not, we decide, completely in keeping with the rest of the hotel – or at least our experience of it so far. My ladyfriend doesn’t complain, but there’s a glint in her eye. We hitch a ride in the first elevator outta there.

We're such fans of our room, we're eager to stay in it as late as we can, so it's breakfast in bed, naturally. The sausages and cheesy, potatoey hash-browny things are a suitably tasty start to a day in the Big Apple. Mrs Smith orders summer fruits, which come with an absurdly huge bowl of yoghurt. 'Bright lights, big portions' would be an appropriate slogan for this city. The food manager calls up to ask if we’ve enjoyed breakfast, and I can't help but slip a complaint about the tea – well, to this stickler of a connoisseur it is rather more like watered-down cocoa than I'd like. Noticing my English accent, the charming woman starts telling me all about the time she was on holiday in Durham. I forget about the tea – just another flirty morning at the Bryant Park. It’s not only the sleek design that makes this hotel super-sexy, it's that breezy ‘ain’t life great?’ positivity the buzzing American metropolis does so well.