CompareNew York
Overall, The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel is the stronger stay.
The Carlyle leads on service (+3.5), dining (+2) and location (+0.5); Aman New York on wellness (+5) and rooms & design (+1).
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New York, USA · Rosewood
Most guests describe genuine warmth, a complimentary suite upgrade during a cold snap, and staff who remember names.
A room here starts around $1,400 a night and a basic deluxe king can run closer to $1,200 before taxes, and what you get for it is a hotel that still feels like a hotel rather than a lobby full of…
Read the full verdictNew York, USA · Aman
The three-floor spa with Banya, Hammam and cold plunge terraces gets the strongest reactions of the whole stay.
Aman New York is a city-centre property with a jazz club, spa suites with fireplaces, and an indoor pool.
Read the full verdictOut of 20. The bars start at 10, so half a point still shows.
Overall +2
Overall: The Carlyle 17 out of 20, Aman New York 15 out of 20.Service +3.5 Why
Service: The Carlyle 17 out of 20, Aman New York 13.5 out of 20.The Carlyle: Most guests describe genuine warmth, a complimentary suite upgrade during a cold snap, and staff who remember names, though a handful report cold, dismissive treatment.
Aman New York: Front desk and spa staff get praised by name in some stays, but a real share of guests report a missing butler, mixed-up reservations, and slow callbacks.
Rooms & Design +1 Why
Rooms & Design: The Carlyle 17.5 out of 20, Aman New York 18.5 out of 20.The Carlyle: Art deco rooms, Ludwig Bemelman’s murals, chandeliers and wood panelling get consistent praise, though the elevators and some bathrooms feel their age.
Location +0.5 Why
Location: The Carlyle 16.5 out of 20, Aman New York 16 out of 20.The Carlyle: The Upper East Side address puts Central Park and Madison Avenue shopping within a short walk but sits away from downtown dining and nightlife.
Aman New York: The 57th Street address puts you next to Fifth Avenue shopping, but the lobby sits on the 14th floor and many guest rooms below it get poor views.
Dining +2 Why
Dining: The Carlyle 16 out of 20, Aman New York 14 out of 20.The Carlyle: Bemelmans Bar and Cafe Carlyle draw people back for the jazz and the crowd, but room service is thin and plant-based options are limited.
Aman New York: Guests call the food fine rather than special for the price, and one wedding-anniversary checkout was disrupted by a lobby flooding incident and billing confusion.
Wellness +5 Why
Wellness: The Carlyle 12.5 out of 20, Aman New York 17.5 out of 20.The Carlyle: The gym gets called out as needing a real upgrade, and there is little else on the wellness side to speak of.
Aman New York: The three-floor spa with Banya, Hammam and cold plunge terraces gets the strongest reactions of the whole stay, though the pool has run cold and the pool windows are painted over.
Strengths of The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel
Strengths of Aman New York
Trade-offs of The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel
Trade-offs of Aman New York
Only at The Carlyle
Nothing the other doesn’t also offer.
Only at Aman New York
A room here starts around $1,400 a night and a basic deluxe king can run closer to $1,200 before taxes, and what you get for it is a hotel that still feels like a hotel rather than a lobby full of phones. The art deco rooms and the Ludwig Bemelman murals in the bar downstairs are the reason people keep coming back, and more than one guest mentions getting waved past the two-hour line at Bemelmans just for being a hotel guest. One traveler recovering from surgery at a nearby hospital was given an entire floor to herself and a stocked kitchen with a blender for protein shakes, arranged by a travel advisor who'd told the hotel why she needed the quiet.
The catch is consistency. Some rooms haven't been touched in years, the elevators are slow, and a few recent stays describe real problems: brown water from the taps, a scabies scare that the hotel wouldn't document, room service orders that never showed up. The food on property is the weakest part of the case — plant-based options are thin, the cheese plate on room service has been described as a few cubes on a dish, and the gym is small enough that regulars book the Surrey next door just to work out. None of that is universal, and the good stays outnumber the bad ones by a wide margin, but at these prices a brown-water afternoon or a missed room service order lands harder than it would somewhere cheaper.
Book it for the Central Park Suite or a high floor if you can get one, for a seat at Bemelmans, and for a version of New York that doesn't exist much anymore. Skip it if what you actually want is a modern gym, adventurous food, or to be near downtown. For anyone chasing old New York glamour with real service behind it, nothing else on the Upper East Side does it quite the same way.
A base room here (Deluxe Suite, roughly 725 square feet) runs from about $1,100 to $3,500 a night depending on season, and what arrives for that is real: Jean-Michel Gathy's dark, warm interiors, a working fireplace, and soundproofing so good you can watch a fire truck go by outside and hear nothing. The building itself, the 1921 Crown Building on 57th Street, is one of the best-designed hotel shells in the city, and the three-floor spa with its Banya and Hammam suites gets more genuine enthusiasm from guests than almost anything else on the property, cold plunge terraces and all.
Where it gets complicated is everything Aman built its name on outside the room. Several guests who've stayed at other Amans describe a butler service that's advertised but doesn't really exist, a concierge that lost a scheduled dinner reservation entirely, and a front desk that can feel like a well-run five-star chain rather than the anticipatory, name-remembering service the brand promises elsewhere. One couple celebrating a tenth anniversary got a chaotic, unresolved checkout after a lobby flooding issue; another found the pool disappointingly cold with no complimentary access to the cold plunge or jacuzzi unless you book the paid Banya treatment. The food is consistently described as good but not memorable, which stings less in a city with this many restaurants but still doesn't match the price tag.
Book it if you want a quiet, beautifully built room to retreat to in Midtown and you're not counting on Aman's resort-level hand-holding to show up. The rooms alone justify a stay for anyone who values a genuinely soundproofed, well-finished space over a livelier boutique address. If personal recognition and a fully realized butler relationship are the point of paying Aman prices, that's inconsistent here. Go for the room and the spa.
We’re Sofie and Nicolas, and we’ve stayed in hotels like these ourselves. Tell us what the trip is and we’ll tell you which one we’d book, and why. We’re not really a booking service, but a few times a year we plan one properly for someone; if that’s what you’re after, say so.
It's just the two of us, so we take on a handful of trips at a time. If we're full, we'll say so. We reply within a working day. The hotel pays us, not you: your rate is the same as booking direct, and the perks come on top.
The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel: Most guests describe genuine warmth, a complimentary suite upgrade during a cold snap, and staff who remember names. Aman New York: The three-floor spa with Banya, Hammam and cold plunge terraces gets the strongest reactions of the whole stay. Overall, The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel is the stronger stay.
The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel is ahead on how you’re looked after. Aman New York is ahead on the spa. Aman New York adds Wellness. Both are tagged Urban, Heritage, Architecture, Romantic and Design.
Aman New York leads on this. The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel: The gym gets called out as needing a real upgrade, and there is little else on the wellness side to speak of. Aman New York: The three-floor spa with Banya, Hammam and cold plunge terraces gets the strongest reactions of the whole stay, though the pool has run cold and the pool windows are painted over.
The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel leads on this. The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel: Most guests describe genuine warmth, a complimentary suite upgrade during a cold snap, and staff who remember names, though a handful report cold, dismissive treatment. Aman New York: Front desk and spa staff get praised by name in some stays, but a real share of guests report a missing butler, mixed-up reservations, and slow callbacks.
Both are in New York, about 1.6 km apart — close enough that the choice is the hotel, not the neighbourhood.
Aman New York, with Three Michelin Keys in the Michelin Guide’s 2026 hotel selection; The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel, holds Two Keys. The Keys come from the guide’s own anonymous inspections and are separate from the Fat Score.
Fat Voyage scores every hotel out of 20 across five dimensions — service, rooms & design, location, dining and wellness — read from the trip reports in the most active luxury travel communities, critics’ reviews and verified guest reviews, with the long, detailed and recent ones counting most. Nothing is paid for, and no hotel can buy a place.
