There are few hotels as storied as Manhattan’s Waldorf Astoria. In the grand, chandelier-filled ballroom, Albert Einstein gave a speech and Ella Fitzgerald once sang. The hotel was also home to luminaries such as Cole Porter, who lived in a suite that was later taken over by Frank Sinatra. Marilyn Monroe and Herbert Hoover were residents at this grandest of grandes dames too.

Founded in the 1890s, the Waldorf Astoria moved into its art deco building, steps from Grand Central Station, on Park Avenue in 1931. Closed since 2017 for an eight‑year restoration that reportedly cost $2bn (€1.72bn), the hotel has at last reopened. One bold aim was reducing the 1,400 guest rooms. Today it has 375 rooms and suites, and 372 private residences. “You can’t run a 1,400-room luxury hotel [these days],” Dino Michael, senior vice-president and global head for Hilton’s luxury brands, tells Monocle. Conrad Hilton won the managing rights in 1949 with his corporation buying it in 1972 before a sale to China’s Anbang Insurance Group in 2014. “The world has moved on,” he adds, while suggesting that the demand for branded residences has been rising. The rooms are designed by Pierre-Yves Rochon in soft grey with white furnishings and art deco motifs on geometric pendant lamps and patterned doorknobs.

Another addition is the Portes Cochères (discreet porches) on 49th and 50th Streets, where guests, greeted by staff in Nicholas Oakwell-designed uniforms, can slip into a marble-clad lobby on the lower-ground floor. At American brasserie Lex Yard by chef Michael Anthony, there are several takes on – you guessed it – the Waldorf salad: the original features celery, apples, grapes, walnuts and a lemon dressing. As the building was picked apart and layers of paint were peeled back and sandblasted, the team unearthed wonders including original marble pillars, embossed walls and even smoke-stained murals on the ceiling in the Silver Corridor, built to mimic Versailles’ Hall of Mirrors.

The main lobby, known as Peacock Alley, originally linked two separate hotels – the Waldorf and the Astoria were subsequently connected – and in it you’ll spy a walnut-and-copper clock commissioned by Queen Victoria, as well as Cole Porter’s mahogany Steinway piano. “It’s in perfect condition and someone plays it every night,” says the senior vice-president, Michael. “We’re living in a time when people are just overwhelmed with homogenisation,” he adds. “Wherever you go, it’s kind of copy-and-paste. This is real and authentic. They don’t build things like this any more.” By 17.00 on a Thursday, before the first piano note even sounds, the lobby buzzes with energy. Patrons cluster at the bar, sipping martinis, playing their part in a century-old ritual.
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