Deep in the heart of a very definable neighborhood rarely referred to as NoMad, the Ace Hotel has out-cooled itself again. When the people at Ace sat down to dream up New York chic, they checked off the boxes for coffee with Stumptown, oysters at John Dory, perfect and drippy lamb-feta burgers at the Breslin, and an outpost for the bastion of avant-garde downtown style at Opening Ceremony. With only one checkbox left for start-up hungry entrepreneurs and bloggers, the Ace was near giving up. How would they fit into this mess? But, if you build such a compound, tired and half-motivated entrepreneurs and bloggers will come. And they did, flooding the poorly lit lobby with more MacBooks using the free WiFi than the eye could see, occasionally taking espresso breaks. And now Google is getting involved. more ›

Seriously, when will it end? Yesterday we received an email announcing that Deitch Projects was presenting a Shepard Fairey Ace Hotel Special Package and Installation. Really! In conjunction with his MAYDAY show (and billboard on Houston Street, and presumably his clothing line's pop-up shop on the LES), Sir Fairey will also wheatpaste over 80 feet of plywood wrapping around the hotel. And there are room deals and limited edition t-shirts and whatever. We were happy to ignore this, but then today we got another email announcing that Shepard Fairey had taken over the walls of Music Hall of Williamsburg, too—and now we're sort of scared that he's coming for us. more ›

Sorry to start the day on a note of bitter envy, but check out all these really, really, ridiculously good looking places we can't get into nor afford! While their styles are somewhat disparate, they do share one thing in common: they all sprang from the minds of Robin Standefer and Stephen Alesch, the hip couple behind design firm Roman and Williams. SO hot right now—but you might not know it if you can't afford a room at The Standard, or can't wait hours for a table at The Breslin or The Standard Grill, or have naively tried to visit that insane Mordor-esque red-glowing bar, formerly known as The Boom Boom Room, atop the 18th floor of The Standard. (To be fair, impecunious nobodies are perfectly welcome to buy a coffee from Stumptown and drink it in the lobby of The Ace Hotel.) more ›

"It’s Hogwarts for hipsters," writes the Times's Sam Sifton in his favorable review of The Breslin, a gastropub in the Ace Hotel that's operated by April Bloomfield and Ken Friedman, both of The Spotted Pig fame. Over multiple visits (including room service—nice work if you can get it!) Sifton is charmed by all the fatty comfort food like smoked pork belly "that’s been roasted to tender goo, for instance, over a drift of buttery mashed potatoes, with cabbage and bacon on the side"; and "the pig’s foot...a non-negotiable one-time order for those who eat feet." But then there are the delayed after-effects: "The Breslin is the sort of restaurant you end up thinking about a lot, not always pleasantly, staring up at the ceiling at 3 in the morning in cold sweat and mild panic... Excess can become wretched, and fast. It’s cool to hook up with the Breslin, especially if you’re lucky enough to sit in one of the semiprivate nooks near the open kitchen. But we should see other people. It would be death to be a regular there." more ›

The lovely-looking restaurant and bar The Breslin begins lunch service tomorrow, and co-owner Ken Friedman (The Spotted Pig) is planning on serving alcohol despite objections from the Masjid Ar-Rahman mosque across the street. Earlier this month the mosque’s leaders called a meeting with Friedman at The Ace Hotel, where The Breslin is located, and asked, "Can you move the bar?" Friedman's response makes us want to hurry over to The Breslin right now for a dram of Laphroaig to show our support (and drown out the voices): more ›

One of the season's more buzzed-about restaurant openings is The Breslin, which will soon be joining Stumptown in the trendy Ace Hotel in the Flatiron District. The hype in this case is not without reason, as the proprieters here are restaurateur Ken Friedman and chef April Bloomfield, of The Spotted Pig fame. more ›

It's been two weeks now since Portland coffee mecca Stumptown opened its first local shop inside the Ace Hotel. And while the third wave coffeeshop is generally known for its beans, it seems to be the baristas getting all the attention. Last week's Times review noted one having "the bone structure of a male model" and said the staff looking so cool they probably "skateboard to work." Now Eater finds reactions from those complaining about "horrible attitude, great coffee" to one who is excited to be served by a "sexypants with the floor plans for tattoos." Have you been there yet? more ›

When Daniel Boulud and Jim Leiken started putting the new restaurant DBGB together, they decided one hamburger would be topped with pulled pork. Rather than to start recipe testing, the chefs decided to use Daisy May's pork and serve the whole thing on a cornbread-cheddar bun. It's like the restaurant world's version of a co-operative: Chefs and restaurants are outsourcing a lot of ingredients from other restaurants these days. Take Kyle Bailey's Lower East Sliders on the bar menu at Allen & Delancey, for example: the pickle is Guss's, the salami is Katz's, and the Grafton Cheddar is from nearby Saxelby Cheesemongers. more ›

Look out Standard, the Ace Hotel is here! Last summer renderings of the establishment's interior began to circulate, as well as some more details about what the chain would bring to New York (they currently have outposts in Seattle, Portland and Palm Springs). Today we stopped by for a sneak peek inside the still unfinished hotel, located at 29th and Broadway. The room we saw had all the fun details the Ace is known for, and rumor has it that long ago the longest ever boxing match happened in the basement of the building, which is why the hotel made the bath robes look like boxing robes! more ›

A small hotel chain that got some ink spilled about it last year in The NY Times, The Ace Hotel, will now bring its charm to New York. They're currently setting up shop at 29th and Broadway, and bringing a Stumptown Coffee (a favorite amongst Pacific Northwesters) with it. The grand opening will be in Winter 08/09, and it will come with a new restaurant from the people behind The Spotted Pig. The Ace tell us a little bit about what to expect:

Ace is the low card and the high card. Our basic rooms are affordable but replete with cool amenities. Our big suites offer all the luxury you would expect from a high-end hotel. Ace Hotel New York is improvisational, a mix of styles, historical periods and objects that come together in layers. The hotel’s design takes its cues from the vibrancy of street life, the honesty of materials and the potential of invention. It is about soul, latent in the old architecture and re-introduced through the new design.