Raffles Boston – the first Raffles in the Americas

Raffles Boston opened on 15 September 2023, the day the storied Singapore brand finally reached North America, inside a 35-storey tower raised at the corner of Stuart Street and Trinity Place in Back Bay. It remains the brand's only address on the continent, sharing its site with 146 private Raffles Residences stacked above the hotel's own 147 rooms and suites. The project, developed by Jordan Warshaw's Noannet Group with Gary Saunders of Saunders Hotel Group and Cain International, brought together three design houses: The Architectural Team for the tower's exterior, Stonehill Taylor for every room and much of the public realm, and Rockwell Group for the spa, fitness centre and residences. Guests check in seventeen floors above the street, in a three-storey Sky Lobby reached by a spiral Grand Staircase. The MICHELIN Guide recognises the result with Two Keys, a distinction the house now shares with its own restaurant, La Padrona, which carries a MICHELIN recommendation of its own.

01The house

The tower topped out at 35 storeys in March 2022, the visible end point of a scheme developed in partnership by Jordan Warshaw of The Noannet Group, hotelier Gary Saunders of Saunders Hotel Group, and their equity partner Cain International. Three firms shaped the result: The Architectural Team designed the building's exterior, Stonehill Taylor fitted every hotel room and several of the shared spaces, and Rockwell Group built the fitness centre, spa and the residences sold above the hotel floors.

Guests arrive not at street level but at the Sky Lobby, a three-storey atrium spanning the 17th, 18th and 19th floors and connected by a spiral Grand Staircase; the hanging plants that flank it are a nod to the window-box greenery found throughout Back Bay's brownstone streets. One floor below, a Writer's Lounge open to both guests and residents honours authors who have stayed at Raffles hotels elsewhere in the world, Ernest Hemingway and W. Somerset Maugham among them. Stonehill Taylor's interiors take their cue from the Emerald Necklace, Frederick Law Olmsted's chain of Boston parks, threading botanical motifs through the public rooms.

02Rooms and suites

The 147 rooms and 30 suites are arranged in a residential register: woodgrain and warm brass reworking mid-century American decor into something unmistakably current, with marble bathrooms and curated furnishings throughout. Categories run from Deluxe and Premier rooms up to the Grand King, then into one-bedroom suites named Emerald, Premier, Gallery and the Raffles Presidential. Guest-room bathrooms carry a floral mural and the headboards soft leaf illustrations, a botanical thread that nods to Raffles' own Singaporean origins as much as to Boston's parks.

Insider tip

Adjacent to Back Bay train station, a block from Copley Place and Newbury Street.

Every stay comes with the brand's signature Butler service, on call for unpacking, garment pressing, dining arrangements and bespoke itinerary planning from arrival to departure — the kind of attentive, almost invisible service Raffles has built its name on since Singapore.

03Where to eat

La Padrona, the fifth restaurant from Boston's A Street Hospitality group, occupies the first and two floors of the hotel as an independent, third-party operation with no direct ties to Raffles itself. James Beard Award-winning chef Jody Adams and Executive Chef Amarilys Colón built the menu around regional Italian cooking, hand-rolled pastas and ingredients sourced both locally and directly from Italy. The restaurant opened in May 2024, was named Boston Magazine's best new restaurant of that year, and by the end of 2025 had earned its own MICHELIN recommendation.

Elsewhere in the hotel, Long Bar & Terrace handles all-day dining with New England-leaning small plates and a terrace view over Back Bay, while Café Pastel covers pastries, coffee and light bites from the morning onward. A 24-hour private-dining team will also bring a full menu to any guest room or suite.

04The bar

Long Bar & Terrace takes its cue directly from the original Long Bar at Raffles Singapore, birthplace of the Singapore Sling, pairing classic mixology with New England-inspired small plates and sweeping skyline views from its outdoor terrace. Upstairs, The Blind Duck plays the speakeasy card properly: a two-level hideaway with rotating cocktail lists and, every Thursday from 9pm to midnight, a live jazz night that has become one of the house's better-kept rituals.

05Spa and wellbeing

The Guerlain Spa occupies the fourth floor in its entirety: three private treatment suites with hydrotherapy baths and showers, a dedicated couples' suite, his-and-hers saunas, a steam room and experience showers, alongside a 20-metre indoor pool, an oversized vitality pool and a Technogym-equipped fitness centre. Condé Nast Traveler counted it among the best new hotel spas in the world, citing the glowing copper elevators that carry guests up to what still feels, with only four treatment rooms, like one of the city's better-kept secrets.

06The neighbourhood

The address does most of the work: Raffles Boston sits a fifteen-minute drive from Logan International Airport and directly beside the Back Bay commuter rail station, within a block of the shops at Copley Place and a short walk from the Boston Public Library, Trinity Church, the galleries of Newbury Street, the Prudential Center, Fenway Park and the Museum of Fine Arts.

07Making the most of a stay

Afternoon Tea is served at Long Bar & Terrace from Thursday to Sunday, pairing pastries and savoury bites with skyline views, while jazz night at The Blind Duck runs every Thursday evening. Well-behaved dogs are welcome for a fee, and the hotel's Sky Gallery — three full floors on 17, 18 and 19 — doubles as both arrival sequence and event space, including a 19th-floor ballroom looking out toward Cambridge.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.