The Twenty Two New York

There are business hotels in New York, workaday places chock-a-block with conference rooms and besuited men hunching over ThinkPads, consuming lukewarm coffee like cows do cud. 

Then there is The Twenty Two. You could stay at The Twenty Two while conducting business, but good luck. Between the sparkly crowd canoodling around the bar and the opulent interiors, honey-hued sconces and plush, velvet drapes for days, you’ll be loath to leave its warm embrace, let alone log onto Zoom.

Alas, work did call during my two-night stint at The Twenty Two, which began on a snowy Tuesday. Smartly dressed bellmen stood before the double doors of the historic building the hotel occupies in Manhattan’s Flatiron District. Known as the Margaret Louisa Vanderbilt house, it was once a haven for enterprising women amassing funds for rooms of their own. 

The brownstone, which dates back to the 19th century, has been brilliantly restored to its original splendor — or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that it’s even more splendid now than it was in the 1800s, given that there’s complimentary Wi-Fi, newspapers in the lobby, and kind and smiling bellhops who will gladly keep your tassel-adorned room key safe behind the cubby-holed front desk as you scurry about town. 

A hallway lined with gilt-edged editions of classic books — Thomas Wolfe’s You Can’t Go Home Again, Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray — leads the way from the lobby to the elevators, which whisk you up to the guestroom floors. Opening the door to your home away from home is like unboxing a gift from someone you know and love. My fifth-floor Superior room had a king-size bed done up in linens as crisp as a cumulus cloud. A set of windows offered a view of 16th Street with none of the attendant noise, and a table between them bore an icy bottle of champagne in a stainless-steel bucket along with a handwritten note, welcoming Mr Smith and me to the property. Well hello to you too, The Twenty Two! 

With that kind of welcome, we could’ve called it a night, but having caught sight of several ebullient individuals toasting their presumable good fortune at Cafe Zaffri, the lobby-adjacent bar and restaurant that operates all day (and well into the wee hours), I was reluctant to turn in. This meant slipping out of The Twenty Two’s opulent slippers — which look like Moroccan moccasins, if Moroccan moccasins were made of cotton velvet — and back into boots, but I figured it best to dress to impress, if not for the fashion-week crowd, who probably cared nothing about little old me, then at least for the staff of Cafe Zaffri, which hails from the same group as the Downtown cool-kid bistro Raf’s. 

I needn’t have bothered. Guests of The Twenty Two are treated like royalty at Cafe Zaffri, and we were swiftly given seats at the long bar in the rear dining room, a great spot to people watch. You can also dine at the bar, and though we’d had dinner, the assortment of breads and Levantine spreads — executive chef Mary Atta tapped into her Lebanese roots when concocting the menu — looked awfully tempting. 

A uniformed bartender shook me up a martini 50/50 style — half gin, half vermouth, less alcohol than the traditional version, the better to have two — and garnished it with the most sumptuous green olives this side of the Nile. Truly, I’d stay at The Twenty Two again for unfettered access to these olives alone. 

I managed to cut myself off after two 50/50s, though the crowd was still as fabulous as ever. Meetings beckoned in the morning and I wanted to hit The Twenty Two’s gym, which occupies the brownstone’s cellar level. After a night of deep sleep and a shot courtesy of the in-room espresso machine — request one and they’ll bring it right up — I was able to get in a power walk on one of two sleek Technogym treadmills, before blasting off the previous day’s excesses in The Twenty Two’s rainfall shower, which, turned up high enough, can transform your bathroom into a veritable steam room. 

Wellness ritual over with, I figured it best to enjoy breakfast, especially since homemade croissants were on offer. Oh, how the walnut-baklava varietal delivered, flaky on the outside, lusciously rich and nutty within. I determined that it would be a crime to scarf it down before dashing out the door and left the unfinished half in the room, alongside a note for housekeeping to please leave it be. 

When I returned to my room, hours later, for that dreaded Zoom, there it was, still glimmering in its sweet and buttery glory. I logged on, turned my camera off, and took care of business as quickly as possible. There were 50/50s to drink, downstairs, and more beautiful people to watch — the best kind of business to do at The Twenty Two New York.