Establishment Hotel

Class: Deluxe

Style: Cutting edge

Rooms: 31

First, the bad news: no swimming pool, just a well-appointed fitness center, and only the penthouse suites have much in the way of views—but one could just as reasonably complain that too few hotels hand out hundred-dollar bills at reception, or that your bellhop is never Orlando Bloom. This place is near-perfect, a thirty-one-room boutique that, as they say, does exactly what it says on the tin; offers chic and comfortable lodging in a convenient city location, and attracts the town's best and brightest young things to its bars and restaurants.

Rooms are either strikingly Japanese, with black floorboards and loft-style timbered ceilings, with dashes of vivid color, or soothingly international, all blonde woods and soft tones for a more calming experience. Beds are sumptuous and generous in size, and flat-screen TVs, DVD players and Bose stereo systems are standard. Look for Bulgari amenities in the massive stone bathrooms—never the sign of a corner-cutting hotel.

The Establishment bar, at one hundred and fifty feet, is the city’s longest, and on some nights the queue for admission is longer—which you’ll bypass, as a hotel guest. The Tank nightclub is a rowdier affair, and the Hemmesphere is more relaxed, with club chairs and divans for luxurious lounging. There are three restaurants as well, Est for fine dining, Sushi E for, well, sushi, and the Garden Bar for weekday Thai lunch.