Fouquet’s New York hotel review: A-list Tribeca with a French twist

A magnet for the rich and famous (in a city full of the rich and famous), Tribeca is not the place for a basic or budget hotel, and Hotel Barrière Fouquet’s New York is anything but. While the exterior of the hideout is low-key, with red bricks and warehouse-style windows nodding to the neighbourhood’s industrial past, inside is a den of delights with music and art everywhere — from the bottom, with its subterranean spa and movie theatre, to the top, with its open-air bar. Credentials are clearly in order: aesthetic comes courtesy of designer du jour Martin Brudnizki (Annabel’s, Broadwick Soho, La Fantaisie and more). And this isn’t the first rodeo for the Barrière brand with its coterie of hotels in France including soignée sibling Fouquet’s Paris. Is it any surprise that the New York offshoot, opened in 2022, is turning heads?
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Score 9/10Each of the 97 rooms is on the larger side for New York and many are splashed with natural light. Spiffed out in princess pinks and frosty greens, you might think you’ve walked into the Ladurée macaron shop, save for the oversized tufted headboards, frosty Murano chandeliers and bespoke armoires, which double as minibars stocked with everything from Provençal sweets to intimacy kits. To-die-for bathrooms also have plenty of personality, with Calacatta Viola marble, fluted art deco lighting and toiletries. Wallpaper is the perfect melange of French heritage and Manhattan hometown, with illustrations of Tribeca landmarks hidden in toile de Jouy motifs.
For social media-suitable views, you’ll want one of the Hudson View Corner Suites (with floor-to-ceiling river vistas) or Terrace Suites with alfresco space. When only the best will do, there’s the two-floor penthouse, an eye-popping residence with three terraces (facing both east and west), and singular styling with scenic murals and a colour palette of eau de nil, cobalt and gold.
Score 8/10 A spin-off of Fouquet Paris’ Champs-Elysées brasserie (a veritable icon dating back to 1899), Brasserie Fouquet’s New York, the signature restaurant, is already a hit with the locals. As with the Parisian outpost, chef Pierre Gagnaire is at the helm of this intimate, red-hued hotspot, dishing up gourmet, garlicky French classics such as buttery escargot and onion soup with baguette croutons, which is also served on the breakfast menu, along with caviar. There are lighter options too, such as glistening crudo and crisped salads. Service here — as in the hotel as a whole — is efficient and cool; there’s no gauche fawning.
Housed in the glassed-in courtyard with a retractable roof, Par Ici Café is heavily focused on vegetables with casual plates such as ALTs instead of BLTs, swapping out bacon for avocado. Two bars ensure you won’t go thirsty: the sceney speakeasy Titsou Bar, with its “vault cocktails” climbing close to three figures (see the Transatlantique at $90 — around £70 — with a base of Macallan Rare Cask) and the Paris-in-spring rooftop bar Le Vaux (open only to guests and the hotel’s private members) with pretty parasols, trimmed topiary and boatloads of bubbly.
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Score 8/10Named after the Barrière group’s late chairwoman Diane Barrière-Desseigne, the bijou-but-brilliant underground Spa Diane Barrière has five treatment rooms (using cult French brand Biologique Recherche), a sauna, a steam room and a petite hydro pool, which is a rare treat in a city boutique hotel. Also on the hotel’s underground level are a darkly lit, clubby gym operated by Dogpound and a stylish private cinema for up to 66 people, with velvet chaises longues and popcorn machines. It’s very popular during the Tribeca film festival.
Score 9/10Known for its old New York mercantile architecture, expensive real estate and celeb residents, Tribeca — a syllabic abbreviation denoting its Lower Manhattan location (triangle below Canal Street) — is a small, manageable neighbourhood that’s rather quiet for New York. Sitting at the cobblestoned corner of Greenwich Street and Desbrosses Street, the hotel is not far from the Financial District, SoHo and Chinatown. Truly, nothing is out of reach, least of all Tribeca icons such as the Odeon restaurant (birthplace of the cosmo), the much-photographed Staple Street Skybridge and the landmark firehouse from the Ghostbusters films.
Price room-only doubles from £628Restaurant mains from £24Family-friendly YAccessible Y
Nicole Trilivas was a guest of Fouquet’s New York (hotelsbarriere.com)
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