Mandarin Oriental, New York — Restaurant in New York

We spent three nights at the Mandarin Oriental (MO). Here are my thoughts:

Pros: The service is incredible. Everyone knew and used my name, whether they were in front of a computer or not. Anything we requested, from coffee to ice packs, was delivered quickly and with genuine kindness. The concierge desk arranged all of our transportation needs (the car service was fantastic) and helped with recommendations and reservations around the city while making me feel like I was their only client. Housekeeping appeared magically when we were out of the room (mostly in the evening), whether I had the "make up room" light on or not. Basically any request I made was met with, "of course."

The location is amazing. We had a "Hudson River view" room, which in our case meant we could turn our head to the right and see the river. But the view of the city straight out of our room was fantastic. The MO occupies the top floors of the building. On the third floor there is a dedicated entrance to a shopping area that includes everything from clothes to stationery to electronics to food in popular brands and several excellent restaurants and bars. (I highly recommend the Porter House restaurant.) There's a lot of construction around the hotel making getting a cab kind of difficult, but as the hotel is steps from Columbus Circle, this wasn't a problem. It's a quick walk to Central Park. It's also perfectly walkable to Lincoln Center and the Metropolitan Museum. We did not walk because of my mother's condition, but on my own, I would have walked it.

Surprisingly, it was very quiet. Perhaps that was aided by our isolation at the end of a hall, but we heard almost no hotel noise and very little city noise.

The Fine: The room was fine. We stayed in a twin room (there aren't many). Because of the arrangement with a regular room across the hall and a possible entry door isolating those two rooms, my guess is it's arranged for a family to use and I think that would be perfect. For as luxurious as the rest of the hotel, the room felt a little shabby. The carpet looked old and in need of a deep clean. The furniture had knicks. Because the hotel wants to wrench every dollar out of you and maybe because the kind of people who typically stay at a luxury hotel don't want to do things for themselves, there was no coffee maker (and a pot of coffee from room service was $25!) and no usable refrigerator, only a mini bar with no extra room. There were some nice amenities like an umbrella and a yoga mat. The closet was huge with plenty of hangers for the two of us and a small (fairly shabby) dresser, more suitable for children's size clothing than adult. There were two TVs, a large one in the bedroom and a small one in the bathroom. The separate toilet room had both a bidet attachment and a telephone. Two luxurious robes were in the room and two sets of slippers.

Cons: The spa was closed two days during the week, including the day my mother needed a massage. (We reserved and walked to the nearby Press and they were fantastic.)

The restaurant was overpriced and not very good. It's worth going to the restaurant for drinks for the view of the city and Central Park. But the food wasn't luxury quality. I had the mushroom risotto. There were way too many mushrooms (and I love mushrooms) and some were cooked so poorly that they stuck in my teeth. I could barely find the rice for the mushrooms. The dessert offerings were boring, though mother loved her mango sorbet. The service wasn't bad, but I had to run down someone to get our check (which never materialized and was billed to the room, though I still don't know how much that meal was.)

Takeaway: Even given the cons and the slight shabbiness of the room, I would stay at the MO again. And I would love to do a world tour of Mandarin properties. The service was just that phenomenal. For the money we spent on the room and food and car services, we could have purchased a nice used car. But for our purpose, it was worth it and I'd love to...

UPDATE: Hotel management team asked to be contacted. I did so over 3 weeks ago and they never responded. Followed up again, no response. It is clear the hotel doesn’t take guest issues seriously. Stay elsewhere in NYC, options are limitless. I will update again if they ever reach out but I’m not hopeful.

I wasn't going to write this review but it's very clear there is something fishy going on with the MONYC reviews page here on Google. We stayed here in August and leading up to our trip the hotel would receive middling reviews, maybe one or 2 a week. All of a sudden they're flooded daily with 4 and 5 star reviews, mostly from accounts that don't write anything and/or have only that one review. It's clearly bots and I wonder if MONYC has something to do with this in an effort to increase the stars associated with their very-much-needing-an-entire-hotel-rennovation hotel. I've stayed at several of MOs and this NYC hotel has really ruined the brand loyalty for me.

This hotel charges above Four Seasons prices and it is really Marriott level and quality. Our room was smoky smelling and musty, every surface was scratched and dinged, paint chipping from the walls or slathered on heavily over old paint, carpet stained, hallways very dark and everything looking outdated. We checked in in the middle of the night or we would have immediately checked out. I slept poorly because of the cigarettes, told the front desk the room smelled of cigarettes and asked to be given a new room. It was promised before normal check-in time. Three o'clock comes around and the room is not ready. Four o'clock and still not ready. Front desk person says, "I don't know why the other front desk person told you it would be ready by 3." Five o'clock it's finally ready and though not smelling of cigarettes, just as badly in disrepair. We found old toenails on the chair in the room and someone else's hair in the shower. The office chair at the desk with splattered with some white substance and the headboard had greasy finger prints on it. When we reported this to the front desk they apologized and comped our lunch. $1,000/night for this, for a base room.

Strangely the pool and fitness center close early in the evening (Hampton Inns in small towns have their fitness centers open 24 hours and this is NYC) and even more strangely there are only 2 chairs for the entire pool area. I was lucky enough to get 1 to read a book and while sitting there a number of guests walked in and couldn't find anywhere to put their things, so they either put them on the wet pool floor or left. Also, a number of employees had pulled conference room chairs onto the pool deck and were just hanging out chatting loudly.

I could continue to give more examples but I'll leave it at that. The whole 3-day experience was bizarre and honestly I wish we would have switched to another hotel instead of just sticking it out. This hotel is bad and I am no longer a...

Absolutely not worth the effort or expense for an overnight. Try the Cipriani instead. Or the Chelsea Hotel. Or any of the other great NYC hotels just down the street or across the park (St Regis, Plaza, etc.). Great but very false presentation, cheap and poorly trained staff, uptight and inflexible beyond belief. The one star is for the great lunch I had earlier this year and the piss poor reception I had for an actual stay. This is coming from a lifelong NY'er and professional documentary filmmaker who has seen these places come and go. Let this one go. I have. Happily cut their locations off from hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of my career and lifetime because they couldn't adapt or accommodate. Take your business elsewhere. I've literally seen them all from the this nightmare to the Savoy... The Mandarin Oriental in NYC is absolutely not worth the hype. Trust a seasoned traveler and location pro, and someone who grew up in this city and neighborhood. If you must, pre-book and pre-pay your stay - staff are so uptight, ignorant and poorly trained as to be unable to recognize and accommodate a professional traveller on an expense account even if you're staring them in the face. Unacceptable and inflexible, stay at your own risk. Even so, tipped the bellmen $20 each to carry my bags in and then out again 30 minutes later - not their fault they work in that kind of environment. They are your best friends in places like this, never the management who were looking for tips just for a smooth check-in. I'm too practiced to let them hold my luggage hostage, as they apparently have for other travelers. Fellow professionals, this is NOT some petty grievance about towels or a lunch gone awry. This is a seasoned traveller and documentarian putting down tens of thousands for just a few nights accommodation, plus tips, but which in the end were MUCH better served across town. Even their so-called 'speakeasy' bar is a nameless joke. You're much better off at the King Cole in the St Regis or Bemelmans at the Carlyle despite the potential crowds. Go early. Those are actually NY legends, unlike this front. Take the word of a seasoned NY'er, the service and accommodations are much better on Central Park South or across town on the Upper East Side. Anyone looking for the real NYC experience... This is not it. At the end of the day they turned out to be just another chain hotel. Visit a real New York legend instead, like the Chelsea, The Carlyle or the Plaza. Literally ANY other NYC legend before this recent and...