NYDiscovery

Rise Bar at the Ritz Carlton

In a place with so many tall buildings as New York you would expect a lot of opportunities to have a drink while overlooking the city from some rooftop. But there are not so many rooftop bar around (neither the Empire State nor the Rockefeller Center has an easy accessible one). Also, many of those bars are pretty secretive and not obvious to spot. Such as the Rise Bar at the Downtown Ritz Carlton. There's no visible sign and once in the lobby one needs to proceed to the elevator and go up to the 14th floor to arrive a smallish bar with a beautiful view over New York harbor, the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and Brooklyn (and New Jersey, of course).

If you get one of the few seats with a view, that is. Many of them, including the ones at the bar, don't. There's a terrace, too, but it was closed for the season. The staff is very nice and professional as you would expect from an international hotel, but the interior is uninspired at best and looks like the set of a cheaply produced sitcom. All in all, it's a place that could be anywhere (save for the view) and has absolutely no NYC touch to it.

There's a good wine selection at prices that top the Waldorf Astoria, some fancy X-tinis, none of them sounded after our taste, and some snacks, which we didn't try. Again, it was Sunday afternoon and we realized that was probably not the best time to visit a hotel bar, because the patrons are mostly tourists that got good weekend deals. So we decided to check out the next hotel bar on a weekday.

Sir Harry's at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel

After almost seven years, New York City doesn't jump in you face as it used to in the first years after we moved here and we need to dig a little deeper to explore the city. That's why we decided to see what's going on in those countless hotel bars spread all over Manhattan.

The idea came to us when we walked along Park Avenue on an Sunday afternoon, which is something that only tourists are doing as there are only office buildings around - and the Waldorf Astoria hotel. Being in the mood for something different, we walked in to have a drink at the bar.

The Waldorf as actually a bunch of bars (five to be precise), but the first one we stumbled upon was Sir Harry's, right left from the lobby. The Waldorf by itself is so laden with history, real one and made up one in movies, that we expected this bar to be a very special place with special people doing some special business.

Of course that's not the case, at least not on a Sunday. The place was mildly filled, exclusively with tourists. Instead of a live piano player there's a TV screen showing football and a wild music selection from tape (something between Ella, Italian canzione and pop music). At least the prices were as expected: outrageous. But the wine was decent and the service friendly, so nothing really to complain about.

Two more interesting tidbits: The bar stools are dangerous - during the 45 minutes we stayed, two of them fell over accidentally. And the bathrooms are free now (as opposed to my last visit in '96), means nobody is in there who passive-aggressively asks for tip.

In the end we had a nice, but unspectacular time. The best thing was, however, that I could convince Elke that we need the Panasonic LX3 for our upcoming vacation. Maybe this wouldn't have worked in a less luxurious environment.