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The Best Places to Stay in Rittenhouse Square & around

  1. The infinity pool on the 57th floor doesn't drain into the city below, though it looks like it might. This Four Seasons occupies the top twelve floors of Philadelphia's tallest tower, which means the views from your room stretch across the whole skyline. Norman Foster designed the building, and the hotel itself plays the warm-modernist card well, with light bouncing through mirrors and enormous arrangements of flowers softening all that glass. It holds a Michelin two-key designation and a Forbes Four Star rating.


  2. Rooms here run from around 450 to 1,700 square feet, which tells you what kind of hotel this is before you've seen the mahogany or the views over Rittenhouse Square. It holds a Michelin Key and a Forbes Four Star, and it earns both through sheer scale and quiet confidence rather than flash. The square outside stays green and walkable, and the neighborhood around it is about as good a base as Philadelphia offers.

    The awards


  3. Each of the twelve rooms in this Midtown Village boutique hotel is named for a woman who passed through when the building housed the New Century Guild, an early feminist organization. The rooms themselves are eclectic and photogenic without feeling like a theme park, and the service is full hotel, not glorified B&B. No restaurant on-site, but the concierge earns their keep pointing you toward the neighborhood. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

    The awards


  4. 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.

    The awards


  5. 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 awards


  6. 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.

    The awards


  7. The awards


  8. 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.

    The awards


  9. 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.

    The awards


  10. The awards


  11. 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.

    The awards


Eat Score

The score comes from the awards it's won, weighted by who gave them: a Michelin star outweighs a listicle. When you sort by what's nearby, distance changes the order, never the score.

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    Drink Score

    The score comes from the awards it's won, weighted by who gave them: a Michelin star outweighs a listicle. When you sort by what's nearby, distance changes the order, never the score.

      How we score →

      Stay Score

      Four fifths of the score is the awards it's won, weighted by who gave them: a Michelin Key outweighs a listicle. The last fifth is where it is: the ranked places to eat and things to do around it, and how safe the country is. When you sort by what's nearby, distance from you changes the order, never the score.

        How we score →

        Do Score

        The score comes from the awards it's won, weighted by who gave them: a Michelin star outweighs a listicle. When you sort by what's nearby, distance changes the order, never the score.

          How we score →

          Best Place Score

          The Best Place Score rates the area around a point, not any one place. The places are 60% of it: the best of what's within reach, weighed by distance. The setting is the other 40%: how life goes in that country (how people rate their own lives, how long and how well they live, how safe they are) and what it's like right there (the air, and the weather). If the score looks low, we probably haven't found enough critics out here yet.