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.

Four Seasons Hotel New York: Staff are named and praised often, Joel and Milton among them, but a phone rep’s crack about the $85,000 suite and a lobby confrontation over affordability show real gaps.

Rooms & Design +5 Why

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.

Four Seasons Hotel New York: Rooms are called spacious with strong views, but several 2025 guests still found 90s-era bathrooms, faux flowers and worn fixtures despite the reopening.

Location +1.5 Why

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.

Four Seasons Hotel New York: A few minutes from Central Park with the Garden restaurant and TY Bar on site, this is as good as Midtown addresses get.

Dining +1.5 Why

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.

Wellness +2.5 Why

The Carlyle: The gym gets called out as needing a real upgrade, and there is little else on the wellness side to speak of.

Four Seasons Hotel New York: The gym is small even by New York standards and there is no full spa, just limited third-party treatments guests skip.

Strengths and trade-offs

The Carlyle

Four Seasons Hotel New York

Strengths of The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel

Art deco rooms and suites, with the Central Park Suite singled out for space and views
Bemelmans Bar and Cafe Carlyle give the hotel a genuine draw beyond the rooms themselves
Staff go out of their way, from arranging a house car in the rain to full-floor privacy for a guest recovering from surgery
Quiet Upper East Side setting a short walk from Central Park and Madison Avenue shopping

Strengths of Four Seasons Hotel New York

Central Park and Fifth Avenue within a five-minute walk
I.M. Pei lobby atrium remains a genuine architectural moment
Named staff repeatedly praised for going out of their way, from bellmen to breakfast servers
Some rooms and suites have been renovated with modern, calm layouts and strong bathrooms

Trade-offs of The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel

Plant-based and room service dining is limited for a hotel at this level
Gym is small and dated compared to nearby competitors like the Surrey
Some recent stays report real lapses: brown water, unresolved maintenance issues, cold service
Some rooms and bathrooms haven’t been renovated in a long time

Trade-offs of Four Seasons Hotel New York

No full spa on site, only limited third-party treatments
Several 2025 stays reported unrenovated rooms with dated fixtures despite the reopening
Isolated but serious front-desk and lobby incidents around guest treatment
Room service quality has been inconsistent, from a subpar club sandwich to a disappointing lounge lunch

Where they differ

Only at The Carlyle

RomanticDesign

Map showing the location of The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel — New York, USA

Only at Four Seasons Hotel New York

Culinary

Map showing the location of Four Seasons Hotel New York — New York, USA

the carlyle a rosewood hotel official 9 — The Carlyle

the carlyle a rosewood hotel official 7 — The Carlyle

four seasons new york official 1 — Four Seasons Hotel New York

four seasons new york web 6 — Four Seasons Hotel New York

The verdicts

The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel

The Carlyle 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.

The full page on The Carlyle

Four Seasons Hotel New York

The address is unbeatable: five minutes from Central Park, an I.M. Pei limestone tower whose lobby still stops people mid-step. That's the case for booking, and it's a real one. But this reopened in stages through 2024 and 2025 after a long closure, and what came back is uneven. Some rooms have been refreshed with clean, calm layouts and standout bathrooms; other guests, in the same year, walked into rooms with the same shower fixtures and faux orchids as before the closure. That's not a small gap.

Service is where the split really shows. Most people who write about this hotel talk about a specific person who made their stay: Milton at breakfast, Christina G. arranging a birthday surprise, a bellman named Eddie. But there's also a front-desk phone rep who volunteered the price of the Ty Warner Penthouse to a caller who'd asked a simple question about a TV, and a lobby incident where a guest was accused of not looking like she could afford to be there. The staff can be genuinely excellent, and the hotel has let a couple of ugly moments happen at the door. There's no full spa currently, just a limited third-party setup most guests skip, and the gym is small for the category.

Book it for the location, the Garden restaurant, and the chance of a room that's actually been redone: ask specifically about a renovated floor before you commit. If a fully modernized room matters more than the address, the Downtown Four Seasons or the Carlyle are worth pricing against this one first. For a Central Park view and that lobby, this still earns its place.

The full page on Four Seasons Hotel New York

Where to stay next, in your inbox.

Newsletter

You’ll get the new hotels and the openings worth booking early, plus longer reads, like which room to ask for or whether a famous name still deserves the trip.

— Nicolas

What fat travellers ask

Which should I book — The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel or Four Seasons Hotel New York?

The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel: Art deco rooms, Ludwig Bemelman’s murals, chandeliers and wood panelling get consistent praise. Four Seasons Hotel New York: A few minutes from Central Park with the Garden restaurant and TY Bar on site, this is as good as Midtown addresses get.

What’s the difference between The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel and Four Seasons Hotel New York?

The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel is ahead on the rooms. Four Seasons Hotel New York is ahead on where it puts you. The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel adds Romantic and Design; Four Seasons Hotel New York adds Culinary. Both are tagged Urban, Heritage and Architecture.

Which is better for rooms & design, The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel or Four Seasons Hotel New York?

The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel leads on this. The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel: Art deco rooms, Ludwig Bemelman’s murals, chandeliers and wood panelling get consistent praise, though the elevators and some bathrooms feel their age. Four Seasons Hotel New York: Rooms are called spacious with strong views, but several 2025 guests still found 90s-era bathrooms, faux flowers and worn fixtures despite the reopening.

Which is better for wellness, The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel or Four Seasons Hotel New York?

The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel 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. Four Seasons Hotel New York: The gym is small even by New York standards and there is no full spa, just limited third-party treatments guests skip.

Where are The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel and Four Seasons Hotel New York?

Both are in New York, about 1.5 km apart — close enough that the choice is the hotel, not the neighbourhood.