The Newbury Boston – a Back Bay icon's third act, with Two MICHELIN Keys

At the corner of Newbury and Arlington Streets, where Back Bay's grandest shopping street meets the Boston Public Garden, The Newbury Boston occupies ground it has held since 1927, when it opened as one of the first Ritz-Carlton hotels in the United States. The building has traded names twice since — Ritz-Carlton, then Taj Boston — before Highgate, the hospitality group that bought the property in 2018, closed it for a renovation and reopened it under its own name in May 2021, with rooms by designer Alexandra Champalimaud and restaurants run by Major Food Group. The MICHELIN Guide now rates the hotel Two Keys, calling it top-tier luxury made more desirable by an inimitable location, an impressive art collection and close-up views of the Public Garden. Its 286 rooms include 44 suites, several with their own wood-burning fireplaces, set above Contessa, the glass-enclosed rooftop Italian restaurant, and The Street Bar, the hotel's long-running social room.

01The house

In 1926, twenty-nine-year-old Edward N. Wyner bought a third-acre site at Arlington and Newbury Streets and, with his father and business partner John S. Slater, formed the Ritz-Arlington Trust to build what became the Ritz-Carlton Boston. It opened the following year as The Ritz-Carlton Hotel, designed by the firm George B. Post & Son and set facing the Public Garden it still overlooks today.

The Ritz-Carlton Boston changed hands over the decades until Taj Hotels bought the property in 2006 and renamed it Taj Boston on 11 January 2007. Taj Boston closed on 31 October 2019, by which time Highgate — the real estate and hospitality manager that had purchased the building in 2018 to restore its landmark status — was already planning the hotel's next chapter. After a two-year renovation, the hotel made its Back Bay debut in mid-May 2021 as The Newbury Boston, with the main entrance moved from Arlington Street to Newbury Street itself.

02Rooms and suites

Behind the restored facade are 286 rooms, including 44 suites, reworked under the direction of designer Alexandra Champalimaud into an aesthetic the MICHELIN Guide describes as handsome and confidently, subtly stylish, fitting for Boston without leaning on obvious New England cues. Suite categories run from the compact Studio Suite up through the Classic Fireplace Suite and Classic Corner Park View Suite to the Grand Suite, which looks over Commonwealth Avenue and the Public Garden.

Insider tip

No on-site spa; Bella Santé across the street handles treatments, while the hotel's own fitness centre runs 24 hours.

Across the property, forty of the rooms and suites keep working wood-burning fireplaces, a rarity among Boston hotels. In-room details include Byredo bath products made for the hotel, Frette robes and linens, an in-room Nespresso Vertuo machine, and private access to The Library and the fitness centre.

03Where to eat

Contessa, the hotel's rooftop restaurant, is Major Food Group's first venture in Boston, created by founders Mario Carbone, Rich Torrisi and Jeff Zalaznick with interiors by designer Ken Fulk. Designed as a glass-enclosed, four-season room, it opens its retractable panels to the Back Bay skyline when the weather allows and closes them tight through the New England winter.

The menu leans on Northern Italy: tortellini en brodo and garganelle verdi al Bolognese among the pastas, beef carpaccio and octopus agrodolce to start, dry-aged Florentine steak and prawns with oven-baked beans among the mains. The wine list runs past 6,000 bottles, weighted toward Piedmont, Tuscany, Bordeaux and Burgundy.

04The bar

The Street Bar has been Back Bay's social hub for decades, the kind of room regulars have gathered in since the hotel's earliest years as the Ritz-Carlton, when its bar overlooking the Public Garden was already a fixture of Boston social life. Today it keeps that role under Major Food Group's direction, its wood panelling and fireplaces intact from the building's original design.

Just off the bar sits The Library, a guest-only lounge stocked with books curated by the Boston Public Library — a quiet counterpoint to the Street Bar's noise, reserved exclusively for hotel residents.

05Wellbeing

The Newbury Boston has no swimming pool and no spa of its own. What it does have is a 24-hour fitness centre on the third floor, overlooking Commonwealth Avenue, designed by Jay Wright and fitted with Life Fitness and Freemotion equipment, Peloton bikes, TRX suspension trainers and a stretch area.

For treatments, the concierge sends guests across Newbury Street to Bella Santé, which offers massage therapy, body treatments, skincare, manicures and pedicures, plus a steam room — all a short walk from the lobby.

06The neighbourhood

The hotel sits directly across from the Boston Public Garden, steps from the shopping and dining of Newbury Street and within reach of the Charles River Esplanade. Tiffany & Co. keeps a boutique in the hotel's own lobby, with Burberry, Chanel and Hermès among its Newbury Street neighbours — making the stretch outside the front door one of the densest concentrations of luxury retail in New England.

07Making the most of a stay

The hotel has been named among Travel + Leisure readers' favourite hotels in Boston, and the MICHELIN Guide singles out its art collection as one of the reasons to book — worth tracking down on a slow walk through the public rooms before heading up to Contessa for a drink as the light drops over the Back Bay rooftops.

Given the location, a stay works best built around Newbury Street on foot: the Public Garden for a morning walk, the shops for the afternoon, and a table at the Street Bar or Contessa to close the day out.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.