Mandarin Oriental, New York: A Nearly Perfect Staycation Perch

What do you get when you cross two alums of the fine dining pantheon The Modern with the finest Italian seafood, creative cocktails and deep and esoteric wine list all in a gorgeously chic Soho setting? Say hello to Principe, which is fast becoming everyone's new favorite downtown destination.

Chinese tourists won’t be coming back to New York City at their pre-pandemic levels next year. Affordability and limited flights are two issues holding back the rebound, say travel executives.

For years, I was a frequent train traveler between New York City and Washington, D.C., and I once loved the ease of riding the rails between the two urban centers. But with each passing trip, the travel times seemed to grow longer, with increasingly unexpected delays. On one infamous ride, when my coworker and I departed our office at the same time, she managed to land in Reykjavik before I reached the nation’s capital. It was around this time that I gave up on riding the rails out of the city altogether.

You'll be waiting a long time to get into Soho House in some of the world's largest cities.

For most New Yorkers, Times Square is a place to be avoided at all times—especially and unequivocally on New Year’s Eve. The Ball Drop looks fun and exciting when watched from the warmth and privacy of your couch but in real life, it looks like a million people packed between police barricades and squished up against each other in the cold for way too many hours, waiting for a 10-second countdown. And there are no public restrooms.

Young budget tourists are putting off trips to New York City. Maybe it’s because they are finding it harder to find affordable rooms.

A New York state court judge dismissed an Airbnb lawsuit against New York City, ruling the city had a right to require host registration and licenses, and that it was reasonable to require that Airbnb — and other platforms — verify that listings have licenses, or face penalties.

Let’s face it: New York is hardly the first city to impose regulations on short-term rentals. Today is the official deadline for hosts to register their listings.

The flight marks a world first on 100% SAF by a commercial airline across the Atlantic, flown on a Boeing 787, using Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines.

In September New York City introduced stringent restrictions on short-term rentals leading to news very quickly that Airbnb bookings in the city had “dried up”.  And this is by no means new, cities like Barcelona and Berlin already have strict restrictions on short-term rental properties, requiring hosts to obtain a licence to operate.

I professed my love for Carnegie Diner in this column more than two years ago. Today, my fondness for the restaurant is as strong as ever and perhaps even more.

“He’s in here, in the kitchen every night and he’s smiling. He’s so happy to be doing this,” explains one of the managers of Café Carmellini. He is chef Andrew Carmellini, well known around New York the past 15 years for his respected but more casual restaurants Locanda Verde, Lafayette, The Dutch, Carne Mare and Bar Primi. This restaurant, which opened November 1st in the new Fifth Avenue Hotel, marks his return to fine dining with reinterpretations of French and Italian classics and as his most personal restaurant is the first one that bears his name. It’s been packed since opening night and looking around the Gilded Age style dining room with its oversized bronze and seeded glass chandeliers suspended from double height ceilings, plush blue banquettes and sculpted trees in the middle of the floor, the chef isn’t the only one smiling.