HotelsForKings editorial scores, each out of 10, against an Aman/Four Seasons bar. How we score →
Our editorial Location score (9.0) is the one figure that survives every pricing scenario; the NoMad address earns it outright. Room & Design (8.5) and Service (8.4) are editorial marks at the genre's top bar, and they sit deliberately above the crowd: guests rate the stay lower. On Booking.com the hotel holds 7.6/10 across 1,856 verified reviews; on Tripadvisor it is 4.0 of 5 from 2,824 reviews — "good," not "exceptional." The recurring deductions are dated bathrooms, compact entry-level rooms, and street noise on low floors.
True cost flag: the rate you are quoted is not the rate you pay. Budget a destination fee of roughly $46 per night plus New York hotel taxes. At a quiet-week rate near $150 that fee is a ~30% surcharge; at a peak $300 rate it stings less. The value sweet spot is a shoulder-season midweek rate on a Deluxe or larger — skip the entry "Bunk" tier unless you specifically want the lower price point.
The Ace Hotel New York at 20 West 29th Street opened in 2009 and changed the New York hotel industry's understanding of what a lobby could be. The ground floor, the coffee shop, the bar, the Wi-Fi, the communal tables, and the specific social mix of hotel guests, neighbourhood creatives, and remote workers that the design generated, became the model for the boutique hotel lobby that every subsequent design hotel in New York has attempted to replicate. Seventeen years on, the Ace New York lobby still operates with the vitality that the original design produced.
The 275 rooms are individually furnished with the Ace brand's aesthetic vocabulary: reclaimed wood, custom upholstery, and the specific details, the turntable in select rooms, the acoustic Martin guitar in others, the reading library, the clawfoot tubs, that distinguish the brand's approach to the hotel room as a cultural environment rather than a standardised commercial space. The bunk room configurations, which accommodate solo travellers at a lower price point, brought the hostel concept's social logic to a design hotel context.
The dining lineup is fully operating as of June 2026, and it adds real value to the rate rather than padding it. Bistro 29, the open-kitchen French bistro under chef Jarett Brodie, runs Provencal-leaning breakfast through dinner; beneath it, the red-lit Sous-Sol lounge handles late drinks and DJ nights from a deep wine cellar. The Lobby Bar is the headline asset: it works as co-working space by day and a neighbourhood bar by night, the laptop crowd at noon becoming the bar-stool crowd by evening. You are paying for that lobby whether or not you book a meal, which is part of why the location score carries this property.
The 29th Street and Broadway position places the hotel in the NoMad district's commercial core, the neighbourhood's tech companies, creative agencies, and media businesses generate the daytime lobby traffic that the Ace's design supports. Madison Square Park is three blocks north; the Empire State Building is six; Penn Station is four. The R and W trains at 28th Street and Broadway provide the city access that a hotel whose guests have diverse meeting geographies requires.
The Ace lobby is the solo retreat amenity that no room provides: a ground-floor coffee shop and bar that operates as a co-working environment, social club, and meeting venue simultaneously, available to hotel guests without reservation or social obligation. The room's turntable or guitar provides the evening's entertainment without requiring the city's participation. For a solo creative retreat that wants the stimulus of the NoMad neighbourhood's energy during the day and the room's cultural character at night, the Ace is the correct address.
The NoMad location and the lobby's co-working infrastructure make the Ace Hotel the creative-industry business hotel that the neighbourhood specifically serves. With Bistro 29 and Sous-Sol both running on property, client dinners and after-meeting drinks stay in the building, and the NoMad's restaurant bench within three blocks covers the rest. The one line a business traveller should price in is the destination fee: on a reimbursed single-night stay it inflates the folio by about $46, so check your expense policy treats it as a room cost. For meetings over coffee in the lobby and weekday stays where the room's design and Wi-Fi do the work, the Ace's formula has been the New York benchmark since 2009.
Approx. $125–$300+/night plus a ~$46/night destination fee and NYC hotel tax. Confirm the fee at booking. Official site: acehotel.com/new-york.
The short version: the Ace is honest about being a scene, not a sanctuary, and the price should be read that way. Entry-level rooms are genuinely small, several with windows onto the street rather than a view, and the 2009 build shows its age in some bathrooms — the 7.6 Booking.com score is driven mostly by those two complaints plus low-floor noise. If you want quiet, space, and polish for your money, a Deluxe or larger is the floor, and even then this is not the address for it.
Two more line items the rate page won't volunteer: the destination fee adds roughly $46 a night regardless of room tier, which hits a cheap winter rate proportionally hardest; and the famous lobby that you are partly paying for is busiest, and loudest, exactly when you might want to use it. None of this makes the Ace overpriced — it makes it a specific purchase. Buy the location, the design, and the lobby culture; don't buy it expecting a hushed five-star room.
Rooms typically run from about $125 on quiet winter dates to $300 or more in peak weeks, with suites higher. Budget an added destination fee of roughly $46 per night on top of the room rate, plus New York's hotel taxes.
Yes. A destination fee of roughly $46 per night is added to the room rate. Confirm the exact amount and what it covers at the time of booking, because it changes the real per-night cost more than most guests expect.
Yes. The Ace Hotel New York at 20 West 29th Street in NoMad is operating and taking bookings in 2026. Its restaurant Bistro 29, the Lobby Bar, and the Sous-Sol lounge are also open.
The 2009 lobby that became the template for the social, co-working hotel lobby, individually furnished rooms with details like turntables and Martin guitars in select categories, and lower-priced bunk rooms for solo travellers.
It rewards guests who book a design-forward room for the lobby scene and NoMad location. The value case weakens if you pay a peak rate plus the destination fee for an entry-level room, since guest scores (Booking.com 7.6) flag dated bathrooms, small rooms, and street noise on lower floors.
The R and W trains stop at 28th Street and Broadway, one block away. Madison Square Park is three blocks north, the Empire State Building six, and Penn Station about four.
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