If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.
Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (USD855.00), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.
The bar of luxury is set very high for Italian heritage brand Cipriani, the decadence-purveyors behind Harry’s Bar in Venice, but with Casa Cipriani New York, it’s rocketed off into the stratosphere. Or, more accurately, set sail, with the vintage ocean-liner stylings (polished mahogany and brass, sea-faring murals) of Thierry Despont. The designer once tasked with restoring the Statue of Liberty, Despont would’ve been able to gaze at his handiwork while overhauling this iconic Battery Maritime Building (which still operates as a ferry hub). Its Guastavino tiles and antique ironwork ensconce you in old-world glamour, enhanced with late-night jazz and brief shining moments in a very exclusive club (unless you’re inspired to plump for membership that is…)
Smith Extra
Get this when you book through us:
A bottle of Cipriani’s prosecco DOC Brut in your room on arrival
Noon, but flexible, subject to availability. Earliest check-in, 3pm.
Prices
Double rooms from £784.59 ($981), including tax at 14.75 per cent. Please note the hotel charges an additional local city tax of $1.50 per room per night on check-out and an additional room tax of $8.00 per room per night on check-out.
More details
Rates don’t include breakfast, but you can use the hotel’s courtesy car for free drop-offs within a three-mile radius, and the New York Times or Wall Street Journal delivered each morning. Staff reach out two weeks before arrival to ask your preferences.
Also
The hotel is fully accessible, and five guest rooms have been adapted to be ADA-compliant.
At the hotel
Members’ club with indoor-outdoor lounges; spa with steam room and sauna; yoga studio; fitness center; concierge; small boutique; charged laundry and dry-cleaning service; free WiFi. In rooms: 55-inch HD TV; minibar; Bluetooth speaker; smart lighting system by Interel; electronic blinds; and custom La Bottega bath products.
Our favourite rooms
Rooms are timelessly elegant in art deco style, with polished mahogany furnishings by Tedeschi, brass accents, Rivolta Carmignani linens, and warm hues. Some have walls lined with Loro Piana cashmere, dining and entertaining spaces, and large walk-in closets. But, the most covetable are those with private terraces or uninterrupted views of the Statue of Liberty; or – in the case of the Premier River View, Verrazzano and Roebling Presidential suites – both. Stay in the latter two and you’ll get more guest entries into the club too.
Spa
The spa’s breadth of treatments ranges from chakra-balancing massages and reflexology, to acupuncture and cupping, to vitamin injections, IV infusions, LED therapies, and cryotherapy sessions (some of which can take place in your room). Couples can indulge together, there are twin steam rooms and saunas in the locker rooms, and beautifying therapies which come in handy when keeping up with Cipriani’s glamorous club clientele. Even the gym has a sense of occasion, with its original cast-iron architectural detailing. It’s kitted out with cardio, strength-training and regeneration equipment, or you can call on a personal trainer for a bespoke work-out and nutrition plan. And there’s a separate studio for yoga and meditation sessions.
Packing tips
Bring your top-tier wardrobe additions, but holster your phone in the club, where pictures and posting on social media are verboten. And, bring your laptop if you need to work while away, but close it for cocktails at 6pm.
Also
The clued-in concierge can arrange tickets for the theater, concerts and sports games; and book tables at hot-ticket tables, private art experiences and cultural tours. And staff will contact you two weeks in advance to enquire about your preferences.
This is Cipriani’s, darling, not Chuck E Cheese – kids can dine (obediently) in the club’s main restaurant from 7am to 5pm, but then they’ll need to leave the fun to the adults. Rooms and suites can fit an extra bed on request ($75 per bed a night).
Sustainability efforts
Whom does one trust to restore a Manhattan icon? Well, in bringing the spectacular Beaux-Arts Battery Maritime Building back to its former glory, there was no-one better qualified than Thierry Despont, who oversaw the nearby Statue of Liberty’s centennial brush-up in 1986. He’s also refreshed the Ritz Paris and Claridge’s in London, and has done exquisite work with Casa Cipriani’s glass Great Hall ceiling, Guastovino tiled arches, mullioned windows, and period ironwork – recycling at its best.
The dining terrace overlooking the Brooklyn Bridge and East River.
Dress Code
Dress up, up, up, in something befitting the Beaux-Arts building’s ornateness. To be on the safe side, shun sneakers and bedazzle yourself. Gents, don a blazer or suit up.
Hotel restaurant
Designer Thierry Despont teased out the Battery Maritime Building’s ferry-terminal past in styling Casa Cipriani’s members’ club like the kind of luxury ocean-liners royalty or those with vaults full of generational wealth sail on. It’s all done in impeccable taste of course, and after a few bellinis and martinis you could easily believe that you’d stepped into the past for a soirée aboard the SS Normandie. The Club Restaurant marries fine old-country craftsmanship with classic New York deco, using gilded glass murals, velvety banquettes, floral flourishes, sleek woods, and torchiere lamps. But the views of the East River and Brooklyn Bridge from the outdoor terrace may well divert your attention. Food is upmarket yet unfussy Italian, with plenty of Harry’s Bar signatures: veal with prosciutto and lemon, butter-soft calf’s liver with wine and rosemary, artichokes from Torcello Island, and lemon-meringue pie for dessert. The Living Room is the club’s more casual hangout (relatively, with a full antique-gold walls and grand fireplace), for freshly fired pizzas, cicchetti and tramezzini (soft Venetian sandwiches). And the Jazz Café evokes supper clubs of the Thirties and Forties, bringing in the more decadent aspects of the era with an oyster-, caviar- and truffle-laced menu (depending on season), and two live bands an evening (open Tuesday to Saturday).
Hotel bar
Drinking is a soigné affair here. But, first, the origin story of Harry’s Bar in Venice: young, wealthy, American traveller Harry Pickering had his funds cut off after his family found out about his partying ways, and barkeep Giuseppe Cipriani took pity on him, loaning him money to return home. Later, Harry returned to Venice to repay him with enough interest to make Cipriani’s bar-opening dreams come true – and the rest is history… One commemorated in the Pickering Room, a space evoking Giuseppe’s warmth and magnitude in its rich woods, mirrored ceilings and convivial seating (there are pictures of the pair on the walls too). The drinks list is lengthy, but you really should raise a couple of bellinis to toast a beautiful friendship. The Promenade Bar has a huddle of stools surrounding a gilt-edged mahogany counter, with an ocean-liner mural behind the bar and watery views to steer home the cruise feel. It’s set at the entrance to the Living Room where drinks flow from noon; but at 6pm, when laptops are shut and evening beckons, coupes and cocktails come out, lights dim and the atmosphere really starts to sparkle. Take drinks to the alfresco Terrazza Bar to look out at Lady Liberty or the Brooklyn Bridge, and see the East River in a more romantic light, as stars come out. The Jazz Café is yet another ‘have a blast in the past’ joint, with two bands a night and revelries revolving around the large golden art-deco globe at its center.
Last orders
Breakfast in the Club Restaurant is from 6am to 11.30am, lunch from noon to 4pm, and dinner from 5.30pm to 11pm. In the Pickering Room, dinner is from 5.30pm to 11pm. And the Terrazza Bar and Jazz Café close around 1am.
Room service
In-room dining keeps up with NYC’s 24-hour wakefulness.
Casa Cipriani, in the beautifully restored Beaux-Arts Battery Maritime Building, has the ultimate in iconic Manhattan views from its southern-tip-of-the-island seat looking out to Lady Liberty herself.
Planes
Of the big three New York (and Jersey) airports, LaGuardia is the closest to the hotel at an hour’s drive away; JFK and Newark are about 90 minutes. Transfers can be arranged in a Mercedes or SUV on request.
Trains
The closest subway stop is Whitehall Street/South Ferry, less than a five-minute walk away. The R, W and N lines pass through here, which will take you up and down the island and out to Queens, Brooklyn and Coney Island. For Amtrak and upstate travel, Penn and Grand Central terminals are both within a 20-minute drive.
Automobiles
A car is more hindrance than help in NYC, where it’s far easier to hail a taxi or hop on the subway than find a parking spot (although the hotel has a valet service from $125). If you want to be dropped off somewhere close by, the Casa can help with a car for free trips within three miles.
Other
If you’re living at Succession level, bring your helicopter (or take the short hop from JFK) and touch down at JRB heliport, which is practically next door to the hotel.
Worth getting out of bed for
Casa Cipriani’s building still operates as a ferry terminal, so you only need to walk downstairs to catch a ride to Governors Island for bike rides, picnics, monuments, three-figures-old houses and walking tours to sites in historic photos. Pause to admire public art and look out for upcoming lawn parties too. And, from the Staten Island terminal next door, you can ride out to Liberty and Ellis islands, to climb crown-wards and stop into the National Museum of Immigration. To deeper dive into Manhattan’s melting-pot past, the Museum of Jewish Heritage, National Yiddish Theater Folksbiene and Irish Hunger Memorial are within walking distance, as is the National Museum of the American Indian, which looks further back to the Lenape tribe. Ride the avant-garde Seaglass Carousel in Battery Park, see the city in all its glory from 102 floors up at the One World Observatory, and learn more about the behemoths surrounding you at the Skyscraper Museum. Skip down charming cobbled Stone Street, stopping for a drink in its eponymous tavern, wander Wall Street and snap the famous profile of Brooklyn Bridge before crossing over into the hipper of NYC’s boroughs. Pier 15 often has pop-up events and gigs, and you can limber up for a Scrooge McDuck dive at the Federal Reserve Bank’s gold vault, which holds 500,000 bars.
Local restaurants
For the city that never sleeps but seemingly always eats, FiDi – perhaps due to its more touristy nature – is hit and miss when it comes to mealtimes. The hotel’s various venues will keep you well-fed, but there are some big-ticket bookings close by, starting with Nobu Downtown – the former AT&T building might be the province of besuited bros and celeb-sorts, but the huge columns and artwork inspired by calligraphy and cherry-blossoms impress, and menu favorites are present and correct (hello, yellowtail sashimi with jalapeño; and miso-glazed black cod). Harry’s might not be any relation to the Venetian bar, but this classic steakhouse, with a coffered ceiling and dramatic lighting ‘tree’ is a chic carnivore’s dream, with steaks of all cuts, beef Wellington wheeled over on a trolley, plus the likes of lobster devilled eggs and Blue Point oysters to snack on. The bar’s a slick hangout too. For authentic Lyonnaise cuisine – we’re talking battered snails with pig-trotter croquettes and veal with sweetbreads in a morel sauce – chef Daniel Boulod’s Le Gratin flies the Tricolore for big, bold Gallic eats. Or stick with Cipriani’s Italian theme at Etrusca, where ‘Tuscan mountain’ food translates to roasted bone-marrow bones with porcini dust and ‘swords’ of bread; maccheroni with fava, preserved lemon, sage, rose and chamomile; and lamb chops with maple and rosemary. Or to get acquainted with Uzbekistani cuisine (moreish fried dumplings with yogurt-y dips, hearty hot-and-cold soups, colorful salads, and well-seasoned kebabs) stop by Farida.
Local cafés
Luke’s Lobster doesn’t mess with the classics, offering a lobster roll packed with meat and accompanied with just mayo, lemon and the secret house seasoning. If you’re hungry, go for the trinity of seafood rolls: lobster, shrimp and crab. And, for a classic, pleasingly chewy NYC treat, stop at Leo’s Bagels.
Local bars
Clinking with awards as jubilantly as its patrons clink glasses, the Dead Rabbit is a slender Irish ‘pub’, which goes hard on the cocktails – there are various iterations of Irish coffee and caffeinated martinis, and whiskey-sloshed this and thats – and has a super-cool comic-book of a menu you can buy as a souvenir. There is indeed a lot of hubble and bubble at fantastical pub the Cauldron, where aside from imaginative tipples there are potion- and wand-making classes and drinks served from magical creatures summoned by spells – lean into the magic for full effect.
There’s a moment of glorious discombobulation where you wake up at the fabulous Casa Cipriani New York and feel like you’ve been transported in time and place. Because while you went to sleep in Manhattan, you open your eyes to find yourself on a glamorous art deco era cruise liner and are halfway out to sea.
Or at least, that’s how I felt when I opened my blinds after a blissful night’s sleep to see boats sailing past my window on the East River, gazing around at the splendour of the decadent interiors of rich mahogany fittings, brass accents, deep plush carpets and portholes for windows on the ‘cabin’ doors.
I was there on a break with Mr Smith on our first joint return to the city after seven years; and we were excited to see what had changed – which, as fans of the iconic Harry’s Bar in Venice, included two nights’ at its latest sibling, Casa Cipriani, newly opened since our last trip.
The hotel is located inside the iconic former Battery Maritime Building, built in 1909 and beautifully renovated by the renowned designer Thierry Despont to include all the nods to its maritime history.
We got the warmest welcome at check-in; our bags were whisked away from us and though it was too early yet to go to our room, we were taken up to the spa to use the gym and luxurious sauna facilities in the plush changing rooms. The gym has everything you could possibly want – and more. Along with a full suite of cardio and weights equipment, there is a huge workout space framed at one end by floor-to-ceiling windows over the river, and a red-light therapy zone. For me, as a fitness fan, it was heaven.
Mr Smith – slightly less keen on a workout – got the nod that he could go up to the room first, and quickly made himself at home on the giant bed (decked out in Rivolta Carmignani linens), watching American sports on the flatscreen television. I joined soon after and was blown away by the interiors’ gorgeous detailing, from the leather club chair by the window to the cashmere-covered walls and the beautiful brass lighting. But mainly by the most restful view over the river.
After a quick scrub up, it was time to hit the members’ club for a pre-dinner cocktail. I loved the old-school glamour of the dress code – no jeans, and blazers for the gents – and more of the sumptuous, vintage, ocean-liner styling in the decor. Velvet-covered banquettes in plush mustards and reds gave it a warming clubby vibe, with views out of the vast windows out to the Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge. As it was glorious weather, in late October, we headed out on deck (or so it felt) to be seated for dinner, where we dined on unfussy but delicious Italian fare of fresh fish and pasta.
It was the perfect way to start an evening: while we could have stayed aboard the hotel all night in the different clubs and lounges (the cocktails are fabulous), of course we wanted to explore the city – and the hotel, we quickly discovered, is the perfect starting point for excursions. Situated at the bottom tip of Manhattan, in the Financial District, it’s a short skip from the bars of Tribeca, the Lower East Side and the East Village – all easily accessible in a cab (summoned by the hotel) or the subway. The next morning, after breakfast, wanting to explore Brooklyn, we hopped on a ferry steps from the hotel, and enjoyed a morning drinking coffees, walking and people-watching. Popping back to freshen up, we used the hotel’s courtesy car to take us up to the East Village for lunch (it drops guests off for free anywhere within a three-mile radius).
After all the walking that being in New York City entails, I was grateful for my hot-stone-massage appointment at the end of the day, which truly eased away any lingering stiffness from the plane.
All too quickly, I’d made the mistake of feeling like I was at home; Casa Cipriani is luxurious, but it’s welcoming and enveloping, too.
Two nights flew by onboard the good ship Cipriani; I was incredibly reluctant to disembark. But all good voyages ultimately must come to an end. I’ll be dreaming of that view out from our bed for a long time to come.
