People are always asking me for my favorite hotel. What’s my favorite hotel in New York? In Paris? In LA? It happens at least once a week, and just last week someone asked me about New York.
I’ve answered with the Carlyle. I’ve also said Aman, the Greenwich, Fouquet’s and the Crosby. It depends on the time of year and what you’re looking to do, and my answer changes all the time.
Of course I have my own personal favorites in each of these cities, but that doesn’t mean I’d send a client there. My own taste doesn’t make a hotel right for you, so I’m careful about my answer. My job is to understand what you need, match it with everywhere I’ve seen and send you there. So when someone asks me a question like that, my answer is usually more questions.
People want one easy answer, especially in this day and age of “this hotel is better than that hotel.” I get it. I watch the same comparison videos you’re watching, and I am starting to make them too. But there’s a lot of nuance in travel that gets missed in the AI and Instagram worlds. When I’m actually booking for a client, I need to know who they are, what they need and what they’ll appreciate. Answering a question like that goes wrong when you know nothing about the person asking.
The English Countryside Example
Say someone asks me for the best hotel in the English countryside. I want to ask them a few things first. Are you going alone, with a friend or with a partner? Are there kids? What time of year is it? What are you prioritizing, and how do you want to feel?
Then I’m usually choosing between 5-10 options, and I’ve been to all of them. Let’s take a look at Estelle Manor, Four Seasons Hampshire, Chewton Glen and Heckfield Place for example, as these are a few usual suspects.
Estelle Manor
Estelle Manor is for when you want to see and be seen. It’s a members’ club as well as a hotel, and if you like the idea of mingling with that crowd, it’s a great place to be. If there’s an event going on or it’s a holiday, it’s an awesome place to be around a lot of people and energy.
The main reasons to go are the spa and the social club. If you’re a cold plunge and sauna person, the baths are one of the most impressive layouts I’ve seen anywhere (other than true wellness hotels). The gym is really great too, and I’m very particular about a hotel gym.
It’s good for kids. They have little Land Rovers driving around the property, which is super cute, and activities for them. It’s not overrun with kids, but the pool gets super busy in the summer.
If you want any kind of privacy or a secluded stay, this is not where you want to be. Members who aren’t hotel guests can pop in and out, so the restaurants and the spa book up fast, and you have to think about your dining in advance. The entry-level rooms are priced quite high, and the service doesn’t always match. In high season, when they’re at max capacity, it’s not as polished. It also doesn’t feel like a traditional five-star hotel. If you want that, I’d go with Four Seasons Hampshire or Chewton Glen.
Four Seasons Hampshire
Four Seasons Hampshire is much more of an Americanized English countryside. Look, it’s still a Four Seasons at the end of the day, and it’s exactly what you think of when you think of an English manor. The grounds aren’t as grand or as expansive as Estelle Manor’s, but they’ve got horses and other animals, a big kids’ club and an adventure pool for the kids. If you have kids and want them in a club, Four Seasons is definitely the way to go.
It’s also really close, about 40 minutes from Heathrow. There are little towns around for a pub, a drink or dinner, so if you want to eat off-site, it’s super easy.
Chewton Glen
If you want a local English stay, where English people actually go, it’s Chewton Glen, down on the south coast. You’ll find more English guests there than at Four Seasons or Estelle Manor, and it’s not overrun with Americans. The rooms could use a little refurb, but it feels traditional.
They’re great with kids too, and if you have kids, I’d go to the treehouses. They’re newer, they have their own concierge and check-in, and they feel a little more adventurous.
It’s a 15-minute walk down to the beach, so if you care about being by the ocean and want to combine it with a countryside feel, it’s pretty unique. There are more unique little towns down that way, and they do a nice afternoon tea.
Heckfield Place
Heckfield Place genuinely feels authentic. It’s a Georgian country-house hotel about an hour from London. There are signature rooms in the main house and garden rooms in the annex, some with private terraces, and they’re basically all one of a kind. For dining on the property, there’s Marle, a farm-to-table restaurant with a Michelin Green Star for sustainability, and Hearth, which does open-flame cooking and fireside dining.
If you’re looking for a more boutique feel, I’d steer you here. If you need all the traditional amenities and a resort feeling, I’d steer you toward Four Seasons. If you want to feel like you’re staying at your coolest friend’s country home, I’d go with Heckfield.
So, which one?
If you’re going for spa, gym and wellness, Estelle Manor. If you’re traveling multigenerational or with kids, Four Seasons Hampshire. If you want a couple of nights that feel truly local, near the ocean, Chewton Glen. If you want something boutique, Heckfield Place. For a big multigenerational group, I’d do one of the homes at Estelle Manor or one of the larger multi-bedroom suites at Four Seasons Hampshire.
There’s also a version of this question where my answer is none of them. If you really want a super secluded stay, I’d look at the private house at Beaverbrook. That house comes at a very different price point, and you’ll need a car or a longer walk to the main facility, so it has to be factored in. Not everyone wants that.
When my relationships come into it
My relationships with hotels can drastically change what a guest receives. Earlier this year, a client booked one of the top hotels in London. I know the property well, and I said, “This guest is super important to me. Please look after them.” They happened to have availability, and it wasn’t their super high season, so they gave him multiple category upgrades. The difference in price was about £20,000 a night. It happened again just this past week at a hotel in New York, where a first-time client was upgraded to a better view.
So when I’m advising clients, that can come into play. If I’m ranking two properties equally and I think I’ll be able to offer better service at one of them, I’ll let them know. Ultimately, it’s still their decision. I’m not just pushing one property because I have a friend there. That’s just bad business.
Who are you asking?
So my advice to travelers is to look at who you’re asking. Do you trust this person’s taste to tell you where you should stay?
I see a travel advisor as an extension of your team. If you have an interior designer, you’d want to trust their taste. If you have a stylist, you’d think they’re quite chic. But an interior designer has their own personal preferences and can still match the style of a home to the client. It’s the same with me. I don’t only work with people who share my taste. My job is knowing when your taste is different, what you’ll like and won’t like, and having that judgment call.
I always ask about other areas of your life, like how you like to spend your time in your own city. I ask about previous trips and what resonated, and one of my favorite questions is, “What didn’t resonate?” What’s a hotel you didn’t like, and why? Was it overly maximalist, or too simple? Did it not have a sense of place? Did it feel too much like a sense of place, and you wanted something more modern? Did you hate being too close to an elevator? I ask this for both city hotels and more remote hotels, so I can understand what you gravitate towards. Who you’re traveling with, the purpose of the trip and how you want to feel all shape how I read your taste.
The clients I love working with have a sharp grip on their taste. If you know you love ultra-modern, great. I know exactly where I’m steering you and where I’m keeping you away from. I also know when to push that boundary and say, “Hey, look, this hotel doesn’t exactly fit your taste, but the service and hard product are just above and beyond the hotel that does.”
Good taste in a travel advisor means good taste in design too. It’s having a keen eye for what different types of service feels like, whether it’s warm or kind of cold, at arm’s length. It’s appreciating all different types of styles and not only gravitating towards one brand or one type of hotel, whether that’s only booking boutique or only booking larger chains. It’s being able to sharply describe the difference between two competing hotels in the same market, and the feeling of walking into each.
Take two London hotels. The Chancery Rosewood is grand in its design, but the rooms have a residential feel. There’s a sculptural chandelier in the atrium, and a giant eagle on the roof at the Eagle Bar. The Cadogan is steeped in history and feels very traditional, in the way people greet you, in the service, and in having access to tennis. The way the guests interact is part of it too. They’re both lovely in their own right, but the service and ambiance are completely different.
I’ve seen other advisors recommend hotels that don’t align with their clients’ taste, because of their own personal preferences or their relationships. That’s hard for me to bite my tongue on, and I don’t agree with it.
For my own advice, I go to a few very select, trusted advisors who don’t have skin in the game of where I’m sending people. I ask friends who travel and whose taste I trust. I have a very chic friend in New York who is a writer with a keen eye for design, atmosphere and feeling, and I’d trust her to describe the way a place feels. My very first boss, the chicest Colombian woman, has an amazing way of describing the places she’s been. I also love asking GMs and hotel salespeople about their own travels. Not about the destination they’re selling, but about somewhere they have no affiliation with. If a hotelier in Europe goes to Buenos Aires, what did they think of the hotel and the place they stayed?
So lean on your own taste, and trust others with exceptional taste where it’s appropriate.
Passerine. New world speed, old world hospitality.
The hotels and experiences worth crossing the world for. Which room to ask for, and what’s worth it. From an advisor who was the client first.
Passerine goes out every Sunday.