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The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel and The Mark Hotel, side by side — the detail is below.
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New York, USA · Rosewood
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
A 1927 landmark building on Madison Avenue with 106 rooms and a Jean-Georges restaurant, steps from Central Park.
Read the full verdictOut of 20. The bars start at 10, so half a point still shows.
Overall
Overall: The Carlyle 17 out of 20, The Mark Hotel Score pending.Service Why
Service: The Carlyle 17 out of 20, The Mark Hotel Not scored.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.
Rooms & Design Why
Rooms & Design: The Carlyle 17.5 out of 20, The Mark Hotel Not scored.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.
The Mark Hotel: Suites have generous closets and marble bathrooms with soaking tubs, but multiple 2025-2026 guests describe dust, stains, mold, and thin soundproofing in specific rooms.
Location Why
Location: The Carlyle 16.5 out of 20, The Mark Hotel Not scored.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.
The Mark Hotel: Steps from Central Park, the Met, and Madison Avenue is the one thing almost nobody disputes, whatever else went wrong on their stay.
Dining Why
Dining: The Carlyle 16 out of 20, The Mark Hotel Not scored.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.
The Mark Hotel: Jean-Georges room service and the hot dog cart get named fondly, but outdoor brunch service has drawn complaints about slow food, missing silverware, and no one checking on soaked tables.
Wellness Why
Wellness: The Carlyle 12.5 out of 20, The Mark Hotel Not scored.The Carlyle: The gym gets called out as needing a real upgrade, and there is little else on the wellness side to speak of.
The Mark Hotel: There’s a Frederic Fekkai salon and a John Lobb shoe-shine, but one guest was told the shoe cleaner couldn’t handle suede, and there’s little else describing a spa or fitness program.
Strengths of The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel
Strengths of The Mark Hotel
Trade-offs of The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel
Trade-offs of The Mark Hotel
Only at The Carlyle
Only at The Mark Hotel
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.
The Mark sells you the Upper East Side at its most old-school: a 1927 building a block from Central Park, doormen who learn your name by the second morning, and a Jean-Georges kitchen sending up breakfast in bed. Guests who get the good version of this hotel describe a front desk that remembers a returning daughter, turn-down service with sweets left out, and a concierge team that solves problems most hotels won't even attempt. That's the case for booking it, and it's real.
It's also not the only version on offer. Multiple 2025-2026 stays describe rooms with dust, stains, and mold in the corners, at rates around $1,500 a night before tax. One guest's dressing-stained coat took ten days, four calls, and thirteen different staff members to come back, and arrived at the wrong address. Another had a scarf go missing and got hung up on twice when asking about it. The building is inconsistent room to room and interaction to interaction in a way that a hotel at this price shouldn't be, and the outdoor dining setup in particular gets knocked for slow, inattentive service on a patio with flimsy chairs.
Book it for the location and the classic New York feeling, not for guaranteed flawless execution. If you land a good room and a good day, it's genuinely special, and long-stay guests keep coming back for exactly that reason. If your priority is total reliability over character, that's a fair thing to price in before you commit. Either way, ask for a renovated room category at check-in and don't assume a lost item will be found quickly.
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 and The Mark Hotel, side by side — the detail is below.
The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel adds Romantic; The Mark Hotel adds Culinary. Both are tagged Urban, Heritage, Architecture and Design.
They land level here. 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. The Mark Hotel: Suites have generous closets and marble bathrooms with soaking tubs, but multiple 2025-2026 guests describe dust, stains, mold, and thin soundproofing in specific rooms.
They land level here. The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel: The Upper East Side address puts Central Park and Madison Avenue shopping within a short walk but sits away from downtown dining and nightlife. The Mark Hotel: Steps from Central Park, the Met, and Madison Avenue is the one thing almost nobody disputes, whatever else went wrong on their stay.
Both are in New York, about 97 m apart — close enough that the choice is the hotel, not the neighbourhood.
Neither: The Mark Hotel and The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel, both hold Two Michelin Keys in the Michelin Guide’s 2026 hotel selection. 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.
