By Curt Gathje, ZAGAT.com staff editor
Here's what you need to know about the world's most famous hotel.
The Plaza's new lobby and Champagne Bar
photo: Ryan Charles
Back after a two-year hiatus for a top-to-toe renovation, the legendary Plaza Hotel has been remade into a mixed-use building comprised of high-end condos, luxe hotel rooms, ritzy restaurants and posh shops. It’s currently in soft opening mode, with the grand, all-systems-go reopening set for May 10th. Here’s what lies ahead.
A standard hotel room
photo: Ryan Charles
Hotel Rooms: Approximately 280 hotel rooms and suites will be available to transient guests (compared to 805 in the past), starting at a cool $1,000 per night. Since some are time-shares, the room inventory will fluctuate from day to day. At present about 80 rooms are ready, with the balance coming back in May.
The renovated Palm Court
photo: Ryan Charles
Restaurants: Two historic restaurants are returning, the Oak Room and the Palm Court, official city landmarks that have been in operation since 1907. The Oak Room is still under renovation and due to reopen in late spring, with Joël Antunes (from Atlanta’s highly rated JOËL) manning the stoves. The Palm Court, now in soft opening, is serving three meals a day – plus its beloved high tea – under the supervision of executive chef Didier Virot (ex Aix); pastry chef Nicole Kaplan (ex Del Posto and Eleven Madison Park) is crafting the sweets. (The Palm Court’s original beaux arts skylight, dismantled in 1944, has been reconstructed as part of the overall renovation, and is quite a sight to behold.) Finally, two former restaurants, The Edwardian Room and Oyster Bar, are being reconfigured into retail space.
Nightlife: The Champagne Bar (pictured at top), an L-shaped lounge flanking the lobby, is now open; the Rose Club, a mezzanine-level lounge offering cocktails and small-plate accompaniments, is due in late March. The Oak Bar, the Plaza’s most famous barroom and the site of its movie debut (Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest), will return in early summer.
Shopping: The hotel’s retail presence will be greatly enhanced from its former collection of thimble-sized jewelers and chocolatiers. A new shopping corridor along the 58th Street side of the building is due in late spring and will include such tony vendors as Assouline Books, Demel Bakery, Ghurka, Jay Strongwater, Kenneth Jay Lane, MCM, Montblanc, Morgenthal Frederics, Peter Lik Fine Arts, Rachel Roy, Seize sur Vingt and Vertu.
As for the rest of the place, all of the 180 condominiums offered were sold, one for $51,539,180, the highest price ever paid for a NY apartment; four additional condos sold in excess of $40 million apiece, at an eye-popping $6,400 a square foot. And if there’s any doubt that the Gilded Age lives on, rumor has it that one new resident purchased space in the basement for his own private swimming pool.