The 25 Best Places to Drink and Stay in Providence

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One of the Gilded Age mansions lining Newport's Cliff Walk, this small luxury hotel holds a Forbes Five Star and a Michelin two-key distinction. No two rooms share a period: Tudor, Georgian, and Renaissance suites each come with a fireplace, most with a Jacuzzi, and some with ocean views dramatic enough to justify the whole trip. Two restaurants, one fine-dining and one slightly looser, pull in locals alongside guests.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. Michelin Guide 2 Keys

Shingled walls, porches aimed at the water, bocce on the lawn, and a private beach on Quonochontaug Pond: Weekapaug Inn has been a summer retreat on Rhode Island's southern coast for as long as anyone's grandparents can remember. Antiques and coastal touches fill the rooms, sailing and bird-watching fill the days, and the whole thing holds a Forbes Five Star without feeling the need to remind you of it. Old New England ease, genuinely unforced.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

A 19th-century mansion on its own private peninsula in Newport, Castle Hill Inn sits where Narragansett Bay opens up and the light does something unreasonable at sunset. The 33 rooms spread across the main house and shingled cottages along the water. Breakfast, afternoon tea, a lighthouse trail, and sunset sails are all part of it. Forbes Four Star and a Michelin two-key property.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. Michelin Guide 2 Keys

Perched on a bluff above Watch Hill with the Atlantic laid out below, Ocean House is a Victorian resort that feels like someone's very grand great-aunt never quite let go of the Gilded Age, and you're glad she didn't. Croquet lawns, a private beach, and rooms done in a quietly luxurious register that earns its Forbes Five Star without announcing it at every turn. Open year-round, which the old summer-colony crowd never managed.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star

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1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The red-brick facade on Westminster Street is old Providence; the 47 rooms inside are decidedly not. This luxury boutique hotel keeps things intimate by local standards, with enough style to make that feel intentional rather than accidental. Rooms come with curated book bags on request, which tells you something about the clientele. The rooftop bar and a modern Italian restaurant mean leaving is genuinely optional.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide 1 Key

A former private hall tucked quietly off Newport's main drag, The Vanderbilt is a boutique hotel that wears its age lightly. The original building and grand public spaces are intact, while rooms run from classic to contemporary, all brought up to a modern luxury standard without losing the feel of the thing. It holds a Michelin Key, which tracks: this is Newport doing itself without the theme-park version of Newport.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Key

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The name promises more opulence than the place delivers, which turns out to be the point. This Newport boutique hotel leans into Gilded Age references with enough ironic distance that the trompe l'oeil textures and Baroque nods feel playful rather than pompous, and designer Rachel Reider's colorful signature keeps it from tipping into costume drama. Lark Hotels, the Massachusetts group behind it, has a knack for that trick.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Perched on ten acres of Narragansett Bay waterfront on Goat Island, this full-scale resort has over 200 rooms, all facing the water, and enough going on that you could skip Newport proper entirely. The marina means some guests arrive by boat, which sets the tone. Scarpetta handles Italian dinner, the Regent Lounge takes over from there, and the Seawater Spa is on hand for whoever overdid it the night before.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Hammetts sits right on Newport's waterfront, a contemporary hotel built in a maritime-industrial style that somehow avoids every anchor motif and rope-coil you'd expect. Oversized windows look out over the marina, the palette runs crisp blue and white, and an outdoor lounge spills onto the harbor. The restaurant, Giusto, does seafood and housemade pasta with a lively bar outside. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Newport is a town where "summer" is a verb and the air smells of ocean breezes and someone else's money, which makes the Attwater a quietly subversive little B&B. The rooms run to bold, contemporary color in a way that reads more Brooklyn than Colonial, though the teals and navy blues threading through the decor remind you that the Atlantic is genuinely close. A tasteful antidote to the usual grand-mansion aesthetic of the neighborhood.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Narragansett has been a surf town forever, but The Break is its first boutique hotel, and it plays the part without reaching for rope coils and ship wheels. Rooms lean mid-century surf-shack instead, many with balconies and gas fireplaces, all with rain showers. There's a pool, a small spa, a bistro downstairs, and a rooftop lounge. The actual surf is a few blocks away, which is either a selling point or a warning, depending on your skill level.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

A comfortable hotel that plays the geography smart, sitting close enough to Newport for the beaches, mansions, and vineyards, but far enough to dodge the summer chaos. Rooms run bright and spacious, some with kitchenettes and balconies. The on-site restaurant, The Helmway, leans into New England standards like lobster rolls made with local ingredients. The Norman Bird Sanctuary is a short drive if you need an excuse to skip the car museum.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Three thousand five hundred acres in Rhode Island, which sounds like a typo until you're fly fishing or clay shooting before noon. The Preserve is a wilderness resort built around outdoor pursuits, with lodging that runs from contemporary townhouses to off-grid tiny homes. Evenings go to cedar hot tubs and the spa. The country's longest indoor shooting range is here, which is either the selling point or the detail that makes you call a different hotel.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Newport's seaside inns tend toward Victorian grandeur, so the Wayfinder's 1970s aesthetic reads almost as a provocation. It's a boutique hotel done for people who want to actually talk to each other, with social spaces threaded throughout, local art on the walls, and rooms that mix maritime ease with a bit of Scandinavian restraint. Coffee comes from Providence roaster Nitro, and Nomi Park handles all-day eating when you surface.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Club Frills is a cocktail bar dressed as a 70s basement, with fake wood paneling, a disco ball, and tabletops that are marble only in spirit. It wears the dive costume without the sticky floors or the low prices. The drinks run low-ABV and funky, often in colors not found in nature, and the kitchen turns out a burger built around diced olives. It was a James Beard semifinalist for Outstanding Professional in Cocktail Service.

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