The Surrey, A Corinthia Hotel – a Jazz-Age confidante, reawakened

At the corner of Madison Avenue and East 76th Street, in the hushed, limestone heart of the Upper East Side, The Surrey has resumed a role it first took up a century ago: discreet confidante to New York's more private kind of grandeur. Built in 1926 as a residence hotel, it once drew John F. Kennedy, Bette Davis and Claudette Colbert, and later spent decades as home to Daniel Boulud's Café Boulud before falling, like many grand dames, on harder times. Bought by the Reuben Brothers and reopened in October 2024 under Corinthia Hotels — the Maltese group's first venture in North America — it has been rebuilt from within by designer Martin Brudnizki while its original Schwartz & Gross façade was carefully restored. The MICHELIN Guide awards it Two MICHELIN Keys, a recognition of a hotel that treats its own history as raw material rather than décor.

01The house

The Surrey Hotel is a 16-story building designed by Schwartz & Gross and completed in 1926, set within the Upper East Side Historic District just west of Madison Avenue. For most of its life it functioned as what its architects of renovation call a discreet refuge for New York's notable and unconventional public figures, seeking shelter from public life rather than the spotlight. Built in 1926 as a residence hotel, it welcomed JFK, Bette Davis and Claudette Colbert among the guests drawn to its particular, unannounced kind of glamour.

Corinthia Hotels — founded in Malta in 1968 — was brought in by the Reuben Brothers to manage the hotel after their 2020 acquisition, and set about a renovation that kept faith with the original building while rebuilding it almost entirely from within. Master architects Schwartz & Gross's heirs at the firm, alongside BKSK Architects, led the restoration of the grand façade, while Martin Brudnizki of MBDS reimagined the interiors. The Surrey, A Corinthia Hotel reopened on 25 October 2024, under the stewardship of managing director Pradeep Raman, previously general manager of the Baccarat Hotel & Residences.

02Rooms and suites

The rebuilt Surrey now comprises 70 guest rooms, 30 suites and 14 private residences across its 16 floors, a deliberate thinning of the old hotel's room count in favour of scale and quiet. Brudnizki, known elsewhere for maximalist flourishes of Missoni fabric and outsized chandeliers, has exercised unusual restraint here, letting the building's prewar proportions do the work.

Insider tip

Request a Central Park-facing Signature suite and book Casa Tua's weekend brunch ahead.

On the top floor, four signature suites take their names and their detailing from the bridges of Central Park: the delicate arches of Bow Bridge, and the ironwork and stonework of Pine Bank and Greywacke, each translated into bespoke architectural and design elements within the rooms. It is a conceit that turns a short walk across the park into something closer to a guided reading of the hotel itself.

03Where to eat

Dining at The Surrey belongs entirely to Casa Tua, the Italian and Mediterranean restaurant group founded in Miami in 2001 by Miky and Leticia Grendene, here making its first appearance in New York as the hotel's exclusive food and beverage partner. The restaurant's design, by the Florentine architect Michele Bonan, pairs custom Italian furniture with an art collection curated by the Grendenes themselves, threading a thread of Florence through the Upper East Side.

Casa Tua serves breakfast from 7 to 11am daily, lunch until 3.30pm, dinner from 5pm, and a weekend brunch — open to hotel guests and the neighbourhood alike, in keeping with a brand whose name simply means Your Home.

04The bar

Beside the lobby, The Lounge by Casa Tua offers a quieter register of the same hospitality: a cappuccino and light bites by day, a chilled martini once the evening sets in, open from 11am to 2am and taking walk-ins without ceremony. One floor above, a private members' club extends the Casa Tua philosophy to those who want their evenings entirely out of view — the one corner of the hotel that remains, deliberately, not open to the public.

05Spa and wellbeing

The Surrey Spa occupies 2,500 square feet on the second floor, built in partnership with Sisley Paris and built around two treatment rooms, a steam room, sauna and a salt-tepidarium relaxation room designed to blend advanced science with the power of botanicals. An AMP-designed gym and a secluded outdoor terrace extend the offer further.

Above it all, hidden from the street, the Buddha Terrace is The Surrey's private outdoor sanctuary — a garden retreat adjacent to the spa where guests can take wellness sessions, or simply sit, above the rhythm of the city below.

06The neighbourhood

The Surrey sits within a few blocks of the Frick Collection, on a stretch of the Upper East Side defined by prewar apartment houses, art dealers and the kind of boutiques that don't need a sign. Central Park itself is a short walk away — close enough that the hotel's own suites borrow its bridges for their names, and that an afternoon can run from a gallery on Madison Avenue to a bench by the reservoir without once needing a taxi.

07Making the most of a stay

The hotel runs on the quiet infrastructure of old-school service: 24-hour concierge and in-room dining, turndown each evening, and an in-house laundry that still matters on the Upper East Side. Guests travelling with dogs will find a considered pet programme, and bicycles are kept on hand for anyone who prefers to cross the park rather than drive around it. Members of Corinthia's Discovery loyalty programme can layer in further privileges, but the real appeal here is simpler: a table at Casa Tua, an hour on the Buddha Terrace, and a short walk home across the park.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.