The Mark – Madison Avenue's starriest lobby, Two MICHELIN Keys

On the corner of Madison Avenue and 77th Street, a sixteen-floor Renaissance Revival building designed by Schwartz & Gross and completed in 1927 opened that September as the Hyde Park Hotel, an apartment hotel for the Upper East Side. Nearly a century on, as The Mark, it is the block's most photographed address: a lobby of black-and-white marble that has earned a reputation as one of the most recognisable in the city, and the place where Met Gala guests step out for their first photographs before crossing to the Metropolitan Museum. Developer Izak Senbahar's Alexico Group bought the building in 2006 and handed its interiors to French designer Jacques Grange, whose renovation reopened in 2009. The MICHELIN Guide gives The Mark Two Keys, its judgment on an address where old money dresses in sycamore and nickel rather than brocade, and where Jean-Georges Vongerichten and the Parisian institution Caviar Kaspia share the ground floor.

01The house

The hotel opened its doors in September 1927 as the Hyde Park Hotel, an apartment hotel, in a building designed by Schwartz & Gross in the Renaissance Revival style, rising sixteen floors near Central Park and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Across the following decades it changed hands and names repeatedly: bought by the investment partnership of Sol Goldman and Alex DiLorenzo in 1966, renamed the Madison Avenue Hotel after a 1984 sale, converted into a luxury hotel called The Mark under the Rafael Group in 1988, then rebranded under Mandarin Oriental in 2000. Alexico Group and Simon Elias bought the building in 2006 and commissioned Jacques Grange to reimagine the interiors, a renovation that reopened the hotel in 2009.

The result, by the hotel's own account, pairs classic luxury with contemporary design, and from the moment a guest steps in, the art deco-inspired lobby clad in black-and-white marble floors sets a tone that is fashionable, worldly, and understated.

02Rooms and suites

The Mark counts 152 rooms and suites, arranged from compact Madison Queen rooms of around 400 sq ft on the lower floors up through Junior Suites, Signature multi-bedroom suites of over 2,100 sq ft, and a Penthouse Collection on the 14th and 16th floors.

Insider tip

Two blocks from Central Park and the Metropolitan Museum of Art; no on-site spa, but a Technogym gym and Frédéric Fekkai salon.

Jacques Grange furnished the rooms in ebony, sycamore, and granite, with black-and-white-floored marble bathrooms fitted with soaking tubs and heated towel racks.

At the top sits The Mark Penthouse, a 10,000 sq ft spread on the 16th floor with three king and two queen bedrooms, a library lounge, a dining room for twelve and private rooftop terrace access with panoramic views over Central Park and the city skyline.

03Where to eat

The Mark Restaurant by Jean-Georges opened in 2010 inside a 5,000 sq ft ground-floor space that architects Spivak worked on with Jacques Grange, built around bronze and glass doors and a double-height skylight over the Formal Dining Room. Since 2024 the kitchen has been led by executive chef de cuisine Pierre Schutz, who had a long tenure with Jean-Georges Vongerichten across his restaurant group. The menu runs from black truffle pizza with fontina cheese, a triple-decker croque monsieur and caramelized beef tenderloin with Gruyère sauce to hamachi sashimi and simply grilled black sea bass or lamb chops, served for breakfast, lunch and dinner with both indoor and outdoor seating when weather allows.

Caviar Kaspia at The Mark, also designed by Jacques Grange, is the first New York outpost of the Parisian institution, carrying its old-world atmosphere onto Madison Avenue. The short, rich menu runs to duck foie gras, a bottarga plate, rosti and caviar pizza, twice-baked potato, and eggs with caviar farmed in the United States, Italy and Bulgaria — the twice-baked potato in particular has become one of the house's signature dishes.

04The bar

The Mark Bar, designed by Jacques Grange with furnishings made specially by Guy de Rougemont and Vladimir Kagan, is the hotel's after-work and after-theatre room on Madison Avenue, built around hand-crafted classic and signature cocktails. Seating is first-come, first-served, which keeps it a genuine neighbourhood room rather than a reservations-only lounge.

05Wellbeing

The Mark does not run a conventional spa. Instead it houses a Technogym fitness room, an in-house Frédéric Fekkai hair salon, and John Lobb shoe-care services, alongside seasonal fitness and wellness programming and in-room massage on request — a model built around personal, on-demand treatments rather than a dedicated wellness floor.

06The neighbourhood

The hotel sits two blocks from Central Park and from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in a stretch of the Upper East Side dense with both commerce and culture. Madison Avenue's flagship boutiques — Chanel, Hermès, Giorgio Armani, Valentino, Christian Louboutin — run south toward 57th Street, while the gallery mile a few streets over takes in Gagosian, David Zwirner, Acquavella and Castelli, with the Frick Collection and the Guggenheim within easy reach for a morning before lunch.

07Making the most of a stay

The Mark's calendar follows New York's own: each spring it becomes an unofficial backstage for the Met Gala, its lobby serving as the point from which stars step out for the first photographs of the night, livestreamed on the day by E! News. In summer, guests can charter the hotel's 70-foot Herreshoff sailboat, one of the few of its kind still sailing, for trips out onto New York Harbor. The hotel is notably dog-friendly, down to a 2025 collaboration with Dolce & Gabbana on an alcohol-free fragrance for dogs. Heading toward its 2027 centenary, The Mark marked its history with a 2025 coffee-table book published by Assouline. Recognition has followed: alongside its Two MICHELIN Keys, held in both the 2024 and 2025 selections, The Mark was named to The World's 50 Best Hotels 2025 as the only New York City hotel on the list, and took Tatler's Best City Hotel in the World and Condé Nast Traveler's Triple Crown Award in 2026.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.