As Raffles Opens in Boston, the City’s Luxury Hotel Scene Gets a Makeover

Linda Laban
·5 min read

Raffles finally made its long-awaited U.S. debut this week, not in N.Y.C. or Los Angeles, but—to the curiosity of many—in Boston.

But maybe the brand zeroed in on Boston’s Back Bay for their newly built, 35-story tower because there so much they could add to the city. Maybe it’s because the city’s other luxury offerings seemed so easy to upstage.

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Unlike another hotel in the city, Raffles has a triple-level Sky Lobby reception on the 17th to 19th floors with a grand staircase. It’s bringing fresh fine dining to the city in the form of the Portuguese cuisine influenced Amar, headed by Michelin-star chef George Mendes. The Connecticut native oversees the hotel’s day-to-night bar and rooftop garden terrace lounge and its street level café. Guests rooms occupy the sixth through 14th floors and share several private spaces with upper-floor, for-sale residence (of course, there’s residences). For instance, there’s the Writers’ Lounge—a signature Raffles space nodding to Raffles literary guests like Ernest Hemingway, W. Somerset Maugham, and Noël Coward—and the fourth floor Raffles Spa, which includes a 20 meter indoor pool (rooms from $1,089 per night).

A room at Raffles Boston
New builds mean new views—from every room at Raffles.

The arrival of Raffles has set off an amenity arms race in Boston, with the city’s existing luxury inns determined to not allow this new comer to steal their thunder.

Reopened this summer with a big fat renovation, Four Seasons Boston’s mega glow-up eradicated the formerly be-marbled and a bit 1980s-ish luxury look. Step inside for a Bohemian luxe circa Parisian L’Age d’Or vibe.

A “mural” (its bespoke wallpaper) of leafy scenery and the signature swans wrapping around the check-in desk nods to the historic Public Garden just across Boylston Street. The once long, large lobby is now broken down into cozier living rooms with whimsical art—Boston boy Ben Franklin blowing bubbles!—and velour couches in tones of dusky plum and mustard.

Now each guest room floor has a uniquely themed pantry stocked with candies, coffee, and filtered water stations: useful and fun. Most rooms retain an elegant silvery grey palette with pops of gold, while the sixth floor Royal Suite comes with its own baby grand piano—known to have housed the likes of Mick Jagger (rooms from $825 per night).

Desks a Raffles Boston
Warm knocks can be found throughout the new Raffles.

At the other end of the design scale, across the river in Cambridge’s genteel Harvard Square, the Charles Hotel completes a several years-long reno that refines its original bling-less quiet elegance and simple Shaker aesthetic.

Design here flows, with ease of use making for ultimate luxury and comfort. Rooms have a collegiate air and the most comfortable beds. Bathrooms include TV mirrors. Newly constructed, the West Wing expands with three new spacious suites. West Wing? Why not, this is where Michelle and Barack did their courting, and he returned while president, too.

The new suave Bar Enza adds Italian influenced dining, and the lobby gained a delightful new cafe. Sip expertly created drinks in Noir bar or outside at the new One Reason Garden Bar, named after a Tracy Chapman song. There’s even world-class music at the Regattabar jazz club. One thing that didn’t change: Henrietta’s Table, the hotel’s main restaurant, ground zero for farm-to-table cooking in the U.S. It was a thing here long before it was The Thing (rooms from $699 per night).

Over on Arlington Street, the “old Ritz-Carlton,” as it is known colloquially, is now the Newbury, a boutique gem that emerged in 2021, a post pandemic beacon, which reversed the beige decor curse and introduced deep inky tones and pops of brilliant orange among plush velour upholstery and richly curated artwork.

Not a bad renaissance for a building that opened in 1927 as the first Ritz-Carlton and hosted stars such as Claudette Colbert and Liz Taylor.

It’s a party on the roof terrace at Raffles.
It’s a party on the roof terrace at Raffles.

Enjoy a Champagne afternoon tea in your room, complete with fire aglow in the original 1920s wood-burning hearth—just call for the fireplace butler get it going. And start or end the day with dining at the Barbie-pinkalicious penthouse Contessa, a truly beautiful be-marbled Italian trattoria styled joint from New York’s Michelin starred Mario Carbone (rooms from $600 per night).

Luxury stays in the Hub really got a shot in the arm when the Mandarin Oriental Boston opened in 2008, attracting the likes of (allegedly) Tom Cruise. A big renovation switched the up decor throughout, and swapped beautiful bespoke Asian dining for various celeb chefs, the latest of which is a Gordon Ramsay joint. Still, the signature spa retains its Zen-chic and rep for high impact treatments (rooms from $850 per night).

But it’s worth noting that the last new construction hotel to really wow the city with that shiny, new hotel smell—and of course a massive casino—was way back in 2019 with the opening of the Encore Boston Harbor. That same year the Four Seasons One Dalton—a slender 61-story sky-high modernism in a previously hidden corner of Back Bay, near Symphony Hall.

So will Raffles really steal the show long term? Probably not. But it’s far-east flare certainly has the city’s old-standbys dusting off their boxing gloves.

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