The Best Places to Drink and Stay in the United States

The Meyer Davis interiors lean on wood, leather, marble, and tile in a way that feels more like a design hotel than a Garment District crash pad. Arlo Midtown sits squarely between Times Square and Hudson Yards, with Penn Station close enough to be useful, and the rooms read as a genuine buffer from the surrounding noise. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels.

A boutique hotel in River North that takes its Silver LEED certification, Chicago's first, as seriously as its décor. The classic brick shell was preserved during renovation partly for sustainability reasons, which makes the contemporary interior feel like a quiet statement. Rooms lean understated with a nod to Chicago's modernist tradition. A French bistro, a coffee shop, and borrowed access to the Godfrey's spa next door round things out.

The old Pacific Building facade dates back forever, but the rooms inside have been quietly modernized with pops of color and calm, residential warmth. This hotel sits at 4th and Market, which is as close to the center of San Francisco as a pin on a map gets, with Union Square, SoMa, and Chinatown all walkable. Dirty Habit, the in-house cocktail bar and restaurant, handles dinner well enough that you might not wander far on your first night.

A pointillist Ruth Bader Ginsburg covers an entire lobby wall, which tells you most of what you need to know before you've even checked in. Hotel Zena is a Viceroy property in Logan Circle that committed fully to a feminist theme after a full renovation, with warrior guardian sculptures flanking the entrance and women's achievements woven into the decor throughout. Subtle it is not, but it commits with conviction.

The deskless check-in is a small thing that signals a larger intention: this is a full-service hotel in the Financial District that isn't trying to cosplay a Midtown business tower. Bold lobby colors and dark bathrooms in the rooms lean into a design sensibility the neighborhood itself has gradually adopted, leaving the old Gotham gravitas uptown where it belongs. A fitness center, spa, and two in-house restaurants round out the stay.

Wabi-sabi as a design philosophy turns out to suit a hotel rather well: Kimpton Hotel Enso channels the Japanese aesthetic into calm, minimalist rooms that feel less like a refresh and more like an intention. The boutique hotel sits squarely in Japantown, which means good ramen, Kabuki Springs, and a genuinely walkable neighborhood are all within easy reach of checkout.

The Kimpton Hotel Fontenot sits at the edge of the Central Business District, which in New Orleans means you're a short walk from everything and nothing ever fully closes. It's a boutique hotel that took a forgettable chain property and dressed it in something the city would actually recognize as its own, from the moody interiors down to the bar. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels, and the location alone does a lot of work.

A 1929 Art Deco building that once housed the American Institute of Architects is a pretty good starting point for a hotel with art on its mind. The Kimpton Palomar leans into that history without turning the place into a lecture, hanging work by Philadelphia artists throughout rooms that feel warm rather than curated. The lobby fireplace alone makes arriving in winter feel like a reasonable life choice. A block from Rittenhouse Square.

Sitting on the cobblestone end of Fore Street in Portland's Old Port, this boutique hotel leans into a nautical theme without going full lighthouse gift shop. Rooms run contemporary-classic, with large soaking tubs in many bathrooms and fireplaces in some suites. BlueFin handles fresh North Atlantic seafood on-site, though the Old Port's bar and restaurant scene starts essentially at the front door.

The bar inside looks like a private library someone forgot to lock, and that's before happy hour. This boutique hotel sits in the Central Business District, between the Warehouse District and the French Quarter, in a former railroad headquarters whose exposed brick walls the designers wisely left alone. The rooms split between a 12-story tower and a smaller neighboring building, and historical photographs of New Orleans keep things grounded in the city rather than the algorithm.

A rooftop pool high enough to make you feel like you're swimming through the skyline sets the tone at this full-service hotel in River North. It runs on a go-big logic, with a 24-hour fitness center and complete business facilities, yet somehow still feels approachable, the kind of place that fusses over your dog and your kids in equal measure. Midwestern warmth, it turns out, scales up just fine.

Perched at the top of Nob Hill, the Huntington is one of those old-school San Francisco hotels that feels like it was built to outlast everything around it, and has. Ken Fulk's renovation kept the bones and sharpened the rest, so rooms still feel like proper apartments rather than hotel boxes, the Big Four Restaurant channels gilded-age railroad money, and Arabella's Cocktail Salon manages to feel both cozy and theatrical at once.

A converted Romanesque church in Adams Morgan, The LINE DC is a boutique hotel where the vaulted ceilings and stained glass have been kept largely intact while everything around them skews deliberately bohemian. The restaurants and bars draw a neighborhood crowd that isn't staying the night, which means the lobby rarely feels like a hotel lobby. Adams Morgan's dining and nightlife scene runs partly through this building, which is either convenient or a little loud, depending on your room.

The lobby looks like Belle Époque Paris reassembled by someone with very strong opinions about color, which sets the tone for the whole hotel. Two blocks from Union Square, the Marker puts most of downtown San Francisco in easy walking distance. Rooms are comfortable rather than lavish, with good linens and modern bathrooms. The in-house Italian trattoria, Tratto, is worth a stop before you head out.

A converted warehouse in the Warehouse Arts District, back when that name still had something to prove. The Old No. 77 Hotel & Chandlery sits on Tchoupitoulas Street a comfortable distance from the French Quarter chaos, which is either the point or the bonus depending on your tolerance for Bourbon Street. The building's bones are industrial; the sensibility is not. Selected by the Michelin Guide.

Three pools, one of them adults-only, and a complimentary nightly happy hour that arrives before anyone asks: Andaz Scottsdale is a resort that makes a convincing case for never leaving the property. The bungalow-style rooms keep things low-key and airy, the spa and a well-regarded restaurant called Weft + Warp are on-site, and the whole setup is designed so that the city outside quietly stops mattering.

Spanish Colonial buildings spread across 265 acres of gardens, hidden paths, and towering trees in San Diego's inland hills. This full-service resort runs to 286 rooms done in earthy neutrals, a spa tucked well away from the main action, a championship golf course, and three pools, which collectively make leaving feel like a logistical overcorrection. Craft breweries and hiking trails sit close by when the urge strikes.

Sitting on Gila River Indian Community land about twenty miles outside Phoenix, this resort takes its setting as a design brief rather than a backdrop. The Pima and Maricopa tribes shape everything from the spa treatments to the restaurant menus, two Troon-managed golf courses look out over the Sierra Estrella Mountains, and an equestrian center will put you on a horse if the pools and wildlife trails haven't already claimed your afternoon.

Deer graze the golf course while guests roast s'mores at the fire pit, which tells you something about the vibe at this resort tucked into two canyons just across PCH from the beach. Eighty-seven acres of hills and ravines give it more of a nature retreat feeling than a seaside hotel. Laguna Beach has an old artist-colony identity beneath the resort gloss, and the Ranch, with its ranch-style rooms and coastal-chic sustainability angle, leans into that quieter story.

The bar actually rotates, one full revolution every fifteen minutes, carried on 2,000 steel rollers by a quarter-horsepower motor. It's a cocktail bar inside the old Monteleone Hotel on Royal Street, and the canopy above the 25-seat circular bar was carved by a carousel craftsman, which explains a lot. New Orleans being New Orleans, nobody finds this strange. It's a strong argument for arriving early enough to feel the room slowly turn.

A hotel one block from the Treasury Building, which puts it about as close to the White House as anything that isn't the White House. The interiors run toward bold, design-forward choices that would raise eyebrows among the city's more buttoned-up regulars, which is precisely the point. Pennsylvania Avenue has never been known for its nightlife, and Hotel Washington seems quietly determined to do something about that.

A 1940s Art Deco building in Dupont Circle, warm with wood and leather in the public rooms and quietly monochrome in the guest rooms, this boutique hotel leans into glamour without making you feel like you're in a museum. The neighborhood is genuinely lived-in, which helps. Lyle's, the in-house restaurant and bar, runs from breakfast through last call, so you rarely have a reason to leave before you're ready.

A former sugar factory at the quieter, river-facing edge of the French Quarter, ONE11 is a hotel whose exposed brick, timber joists, and original columns do most of the decorating. Rooms lean into the loft feeling without the austerity, landing somewhere warm and a little theatrical, which fits the neighborhood. Batture Bistro + Bar handles everything from morning coffee to late-night cocktails. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected New Orleans hotels.

The Packard Building has been around forever, and Morris Adjmi Architects, the firm behind the Wythe in Williamsburg, converted two of its floors into an apartment hotel steps from City Hall. Rooms feel like a borrowed pied-à-terre rather than a standard hotel stay, with residential-grade kitchens and enough design detail to make you forget you're paying by the night. The Michelin Guide has it on their selected hotels list.

High ceilings, detailed molding, and hardwood floors survived a careful restoration at this grand old Center City hotel, where 184 rooms split between two moods: deep charcoal walls with four-poster beds for the dramatic, white paneling for the sensible. Brass sconces and velvet bolster pillows in olive or rust appear throughout. City Hall sits right outside on Broad Street, and the six-story Conservatory lounge gives everyone somewhere to land after a long day of feeling historic.

A wrought-iron-balconied courtyard that stops you mid-step is the heart of this boutique hotel on Upper King Street. Morris Adjmi Architects designed the façade to nod at Charleston's architectural jumble without copying any of it, but step inside and the Victorian atmosphere takes over completely. Fifty rooms keep it from feeling like a scene. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels.

The former home of the Portland Press Herald spent nearly a century printing the news; now it's a 110-room boutique hotel in the Old Port where the newspaper theme is more than wallpaper. The building itself does the heavy lifting, so the vintage journalist decor reads like atmosphere rather than concept. Selected by the Michelin Guide, it's a Marriott Autograph Collection property, which means independent spirit with loyalty points attached.

The cast-iron and red-brick facade fits right into Denver's River North Arts District, but the interiors take a sharp left turn into the salon of a 17th-century French marquise. This boutique hotel pulls it off without apology. Rooms run contemporary and plush, the staff dress the part, and the building houses Death & Co's Denver outpost alongside a pan-Latin restaurant from James Beard winner Dana Rodriguez.

A boutique-within-a-hotel concept tucked inside Park MGM, this feels like it belongs on a different block than the Strip. Jacques Garcia designed the rooms, which means rich fabrics and a faint sense of old-world theater. By day the pool is a pool; by evening it tilts Moroccan and nightclub. The bar and restaurant spread through the common spaces the way they do in New York and Los Angeles, which is to say they take over completely.

Sitting at 16th and Market, this boutique luxury hotel puts you within walking distance of Union Station, Coors Field, and most of Denver's better dinner decisions. Rooms lean into a retro-inflected modern sensibility that the Thompson brand does well. Ludo Lefebvre's French restaurant Chez Maggy is downstairs, and the rooftop bar Reynard Social has a Rockies view that makes it hard to go back inside.

Mid-century modern lines and warm, well-considered rooms put this Dupont Circle hotel in that narrow lane between aggressively trendy and forgettable business-chain. The Viceroy brand has a knack for making a lobby feel like somewhere you'd actually want to sit, and the DC outpost follows through with enough polish to satisfy the points-chasing traveler and enough personality to keep the boutique crowd from bolting.

Richard Branson's hotel brand carries its personality the way a tour rider carries a no-brown-M&Ms clause: loudly, and with full commitment. This New Orleans outpost is a full-service hotel on Baronne Street where the decor leans maximalist, the common spaces are built for lingering, and the vibe skews young and sociable without feeling like a hostel that found a design budget. Selected by the Michelin Guide.

A skyscraper hotel steps from City Hall, the W Philadelphia plays against type: the usual brand theatrics are dialed back in favor of something more sober and grown-up, without losing the style. Public spaces run to a swanky lounge, a rooftop bar, and a modern Italian restaurant evoking Sixties Rome. For a W, surprisingly easy to take seriously.

Twelve acres of exotic gardens and waterfalls in the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains make this Four Seasons feel genuinely removed from Los Angeles, even if it's only an hour out. The resort hosts what the collection bills as its largest spa, so the crowd skews toward people who came here specifically to lie down and breathe. Malibu and Santa Barbara are both easy day trips from the driveway.

Floor-to-ceiling windows in every suite frame Bahrain Bay without interruption, which is a strong opening argument for a hotel that needs no other. The Conrad Financial Harbour is an all-suite luxury property in the heart of the financial district, with Bahraini artwork threading through interiors that otherwise look ripped from a design magazine. A rooftop pool and a Sushisamba round out the package. It holds a Forbes Four Star.

A koi pond with an arched bridge over water lilies does a lot of heavy lifting for a hotel lobby, but Mirbeau leans into its French manor fantasy and the grounds more or less pull it off. The 34 rooms and four standalone cottages all come with fireplaces, and most guests seem to arrive with the 14,000-square-foot spa already on their itinerary. Forbes rates it Four Star. Skaneateles is quietly lovely, and Mirbeau knows it.

A championship golf course rolling out behind the lobby sets the tone at this resort hotel tucked into the leafy, upscale south side of Charlotte. Rooms run in chic gray and white, the two-story lobby pulls in natural light through a back wall of windows, and the terrace is where you want to be with a glass of Scotch watching the greens. Tennis, indoor and outdoor pools, and a spa round out the offering for guests who can't quite stop doing things.

A former cattle ranch turned low-rise resort, with TPC Las Colinas fairways visible from most balconies, sits just minutes from DFW and somehow feels nothing like an airport hotel. The Ritz-Carlton Las Colinas spreads across 400 acres, trading the urban tower format for genuine breathing room between buildings. Three pools, a large spa, tennis and pickleball courts, and five dining options give guests enough to do that leaving feels optional.

A Harlem cocktail bar run by artists, which explains why the drinks feel less like menu items and more like installation pieces. The house forager supplies wild edible plants that become bitters, liqueurs, and amari made in-house, so what ends up in your glass has a provenance most bars can't claim. The room is cozy and unhurried, and the crowd tends to treat the cocktail list the way other people treat gallery notes.

Red lights, pool tables, a game room, and flatbreads until 2 a.m.: The Little Woody refuses to be just one kind of place, and Arcadia has loved it for years because of that. It's a dive bar with cocktail lounge bones, where dart nights blur into dancing and the Gun Shy Sour keeps the bourbon crowd happy. Weekend nights draw a younger crowd who treat the arcade games as warmly as the drinks.

At five o'clock on the dot, a perfume shop inside a Victorian mansion in Midtown folds itself into an 18-seat cocktail bar. Castalia is built around the idea that smell and taste are basically the same argument, pairing its seasonal experimental cocktails with scents from its sister perfume house. The room holds fewer people than a dinner party, which tends to focus everyone's attention on what's in the glass.

Nocturno is a low-lit Arts District cocktail bar with a menu of over 100 drinks, which is a lot of homework before your first sip. Sit at the bar instead and the bartender will quiz you on your favorite spirit, then turn it into something like mezcal with honey and chili. The kitchen sends out gnocchi and a fried potato tower, and the smash burger shows up only on Sundays. It was a James Beard Best New Bar semifinalist.

Mid-century modern furniture and locally sourced art share space in a hotel that brought a New York boutique sensibility to Savannah's Eastern Wharf neighborhood, and somehow neither side blinked. The Thompson is a sizeable luxury hotel, nearly 200 rooms, but it carries itself with the restraint of something smaller. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels, which tracks for a place that reads like it knows exactly what it's doing.

The deep whiskey list is the tell: Nickel City is a cocktail bar that takes its drinks seriously without taking itself seriously. An Austin transplant now rooted in the East End, it pulls off the trick of being a genuine neighborhood hangout and a credible bar program at the same time. Hot dogs and mozzarella sticks handle the rest. A Top 10 U.S. Nominee at the Spirited Awards keeps the credentials honest.

The cantilevered rooftop pool jutting out over Main Street like an afterthought someone forgot to pull back is the image that stays with you. The Joule is a design hotel in a Gothic bank building from the 1920s, and the tension between those two facts is kind of the whole point. It's the kind of lobby you wander through even when you're not staying there, which Dallas apparently does, given the 2025 Best Hotel Lobby nod from the Dallas Observer.

Two blocks from the actual White House, this extended-stay hotel trades nightly-rate thinking for full kitchens, in-suite laundry, and enough square footage to forget you packed a suitcase. Suites run from one-bedroom to penthouse, all dressed in the kind of restrained luxury that suits a city where everyone is here on business. The in-house lounge doubles as bar, workspace, and informal meeting room, for when self-sufficiency only goes so far.

The Aloft chain has a reputation for identical rooms in identical buildings near identical highways, which makes this one genuinely surprising. It occupies a 1920s Classical Revival landmark on North Broad Street, and the bones of the old Liberty Title Building give it the kind of character most Aloft properties have to fake with accent walls. A midrange Marriott hotel that actually has somewhere to be.

A glass-enclosed rooftop bar with unobstructed Manhattan skyline views is a reasonable argument for crossing the bridge. This Wythe Avenue hotel occupies a striking eight-story building in brick, glass, and weathered steel, with double-height guest rooms fitted out in custom furniture that leans toward retro modernism with a bit of prewar New York texture. An Eastern Mediterranean restaurant sits off the lobby for when you'd rather not wander far.

A Hilton luxury-boutique hotel tucked a block off East Market in an old-school office building whose bones have been kept and dressed up by AvroKO in a palette that reads firmly present-tense. The result is a place that feels considered rather than corporate, and its East Market address puts guests within easy reach of some of the city's better dining and nightlife without making them work for it.

The brick building on Poydras Street has been feeding and housing New Orleans since forever, and Copper Vine keeps that streak alive with eleven rooms above a wine-focused pub in the Central Business District. Ceilings soar, windows run floor to ceiling behind locally made Pavy drapes, and original artwork fills every corner. The Terrace Suite, carved from the old attic with exposed brick chimneys, is the one to request.

A boutique hotel in LoDo, steps from the restored Union Station, with rooms that balance mountain-lodge warmth against proper city-hotel polish. The common spaces lean into it: Citizen Rail does wood-fired cooking downstairs, and Tavernetta handles pan-Italian next door. The neighborhood does the rest, since LoDo has quietly become one of those districts where you barely need to plan anything.

Rooms here are styled after the classic North Brooklyn apartment, which sounds like damning with faint praise until you see the hardwood floors, the kitchenettes, and the art books chosen with actual care. This boutique hotel in Williamsburg keeps an in-house gallery for good measure, since framed prints apparently weren't enough. Union Pool is steps away, so you'll know by midnight whether that's a selling point or a warning.

A few blocks from the Capitol, this Irish-owned hotel chose to name itself after a Dublin park rather than lean into its politically charged zip code, which tells you something about its personality. Guest rooms run deep indigo against silver and white, elegant without being stuffy. The Dubliner downstairs is exactly the Irish pub you'd conjure if you closed your eyes and wished hard enough. Lobbyists tend to book elsewhere, which is probably a point in its favor.

A ten-story glass atrium sets the tone for this Capitol Hill hotel, which hangs commissioned artwork where most business-district properties hang generic prints. Rooms are spacious by DC standards, with pillow-top beds and Egyptian cotton sheets, and the gym and yoga studio are genuinely solid. Bistro du Jour turns out French classics in a room ornate enough that you almost believe it. Union Station is a short walk; the Supreme Court, a little less so.

The Allegro Royal Sonesta sits inside the Loop connected directly to the Cadillac Palace Theater, which tells you something about its disposition. This is a hotel for people who want to see a show, or who just want a room that feels like one. The Art Deco interiors nod to the era when Chicago's skyline was still an argument in progress. Atelier Bloem bath products and a lounge serving all-day dining round things out.

A boutique hotel planted steps from Coors Field, The Rally is what happens when a city's downtown revival actually takes hold. The LoDo neighborhood around it fills with bars, restaurants, and a game-day crowd that knows exactly where it's going, and the hotel sits at the center of McGregor Square's mix of shops, event spaces, and nightlife. A Michelin Selected Hotel, so the rooms won't let the location down.

Rooms on the river side look straight down onto the Riverwalk and across at Tribune Tower, which is a better alarm clock than most hotels can offer. The Royal Sonesta is a luxury hotel on the Chicago River, right where it bends around the Magnificent Mile, and that address is rarer than it sounds. The Michelin Guide lists it among its selected hotels. Pack accordingly for the architecture views alone.

A Gold Coast hotel that was doing the boutique thing before anyone called it that, the Talbott has the bones of an older, quieter Chicago and a recent overhaul by local designer Kara Mann to keep it feeling current. Rooms are residential-scale rather than grand, which suits the neighborhood, where the vibe runs more old-money discreet than convention-circuit splash. A solid, unfussy base for the North Side.

The minibar charges corner-shop prices, a small act of decency that sets the tone for this Loop hotel inside a restored building that's been around forever. Rooms split in two with sliding doors for travel companions on different sleep schedules, and the beds convert into lounge configurations, since apparently a chair that works is too much to ask of most hotels. A rooftop bar and two restaurants round things out.

Warm, eclectic interiors that feel like someone actually collected the pieces rather than ordered them from a mood board. Yours Truly is a boutique hotel in Dupont Circle that belongs to IHG's Vignette Collection, pitching itself somewhere between high-design cool and genuinely livable. The industrial bones nod to an earlier era of design hotels, but the result reads more like a well-traveled apartment than a set piece. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels.

Thirteen rooms tucked into a pair of former South Street rowhouses, Yowie is a boutique hotel from a designer who spent years at Ralph Lauren before coming home to Philadelphia. The brick exterior is classic Queen Village, but inside it runs minimalist and colorful, full of the same eye that built her homewares shop downstairs. There's no front desk, just a self-check-in that feels less like hospitality protocol and more like borrowing a very stylish friend's apartment.

Perched on its own peninsula about an hour east of Atlanta, this Ritz-Carlton breaks from the brand's usual playbook with Craftsman-style architecture that feels at home among the pines and lakeshore. Rooms and lakeside cottages cover the lodging, while five championship golf courses, kayaks, water bikes, and a full spa handle everything else. A Forbes Four Star and Michelin Key property that functions, without apology, as an upscale summer camp for adults.