Hotel Snapshot
SoHo is cobblestone streets, flagship stores, and some of the best people-watching in Manhattan. (As a SoHo resident, I might be biased, but I stand by it.) Every day, walking down Prince Street, I pass designer stores, upscale coffee shops, bookstores, and one too many Joe and the Juice. One set of windows I always peek into is The Mercer's. It sits right in the middle of it all, on the corner of Mercer and Prince. The hotel opened in 1997 as SoHo's first, inside a landmark building from 1890 originally built for American financier and philanthropist John Jacob Astor III.
Part of that comes down to who's in the building. Scott Sartiano, founder of Zero Bond, the downtown members' club that's shorthand for New York exclusivity, brought his restaurant Sartiano's into the hotel a few years back, pulling in the same crowd that treats Zero Bond like a second living room. Christian Liaigre did the original interiors back in '97, and his calm, stripped-back style set the tone for what "downtown luxury" meant for decades. This spring, The Mercer wrapped a full renovation, the first real refresh of all 73 rooms and suites since Liaigre's original design.
Design & Character
The Mercer's spring renovation refined Christian Liaigre's 1997 design, and you can see that the second you walk in. The property is upscale without being pretentious, and the lighting is low, the rooms are quiet, and it might even make you want to stay in for the night instead of going out (which says a lot, especially in New York). My room had massive arched windows looking straight out into SoHo, which was one of my favorite features.
Plus, the lobby is where I'd want to spend a rainy afternoon. It's private, for guests-only, with African wenge wood paneling, 14-foot ceilings, and a 50-foot library full of art and design books. Order a matcha or stiff drink, grab a book, and you'd never guess you were in a hotel lobby.
The Rooms
There are 73 rooms and suites here, and the range is wide. SoHo Studios are the entry point, around 350 square feet, light-filled and set right on Mercer or Prince Street, with exposed brick in many of them and a small seating area for working or just having coffee. Loft Suites sit on the top floor and run closer to 700 square feet, and no two are laid out exactly alike, since they were carved out of the building's original artist lofts rather than built to a template. Mine had incredible, massive arched windows, a soaking tub, a separate walk-in shower, a breakfast nook, and a seating area. A few Loft Suites go even further with working wood-burning fireplaces, which is about as close to an actual New York rarity as it gets.
Stay at The Mercer, and you also get access to the wider Mercer ecosystem: complimentary entry to Zero Bond, the members' club Scott Sartiano built his name on, plus Equinox SoHo and the Lore Bathing Club. Essentially, this hotel is plugged into the same downtown network that makes SoHo so cool.
The Food & Drink
Sartiano's runs the show here. Studio Sofield designed the space (the same firm behind some of Tom Ford's most talked-about interiors), and it leans into a moody Tuscan wine cellar look: exposed brick, Carrara marble counters, supple leather bar seats. James Beard Award winner Alfred Portale serves as culinary director, with Chris Lewnes, a Brooklyn-born chef trained under Markus Glocker at Bâtard, running the kitchen day to day.
Of course, the menu is impressive. There's a full caviar program, including Siberian caviar service by the ounce, along with crudo, a raw bar, and a steakhouse-level Bistecca section that tops out at a 40-ounce Prime Tomahawk Ribeye. Pasta is where the kitchen really shows off, with the bucatini with Maine lobster and Calabrian chili butter, lasagna with wild mushroom and black truffle, and fusilli with a Wagyu beef ragú. The cocktail list matches the ambition of the food, with drinks like a Tree Tomato Negroni and a martini finished with black truffle caviar perlage. Order each for the table.
Sartiano's Café handles the lighter, daytime side of things with breakfast, brunch, and lunch, open to the public, with sidewalk seating in warmer months that's one of the better people-watching perches on this stretch of Mercer Street. At night, the café runs its own slightly scaled-back dinner menu. And, if you'd rather not leave your room at all, the same Sartiano's menu comes to you, in the lobby or in bed, any hour you want it.
The Amenities
The little things are handled well here, and a few of them go further than the usual five-star checklist. Every room comes with Dyson hairdryers, a stocked minibar, coffee and tea service on request, nightly turndown, a daily newspaper selection, and a complimentary selection of great snacks. There's a private workout room available around the clock by appointment, plus complimentary access to a luxury gym just two blocks away if you want more space or equipment.
The skincare partnership is its own destination. The Mercer Facial, created exclusively with Dr. Barbara Sturm, is a 60-minute treatment built to sculpt and restore, paired with a scalp massage and red-light therapy on top of Sturm's own formulations.
As mentioned, guests are also invited into Zero Bond throughout your stay – the private members' club a few minutes away that's basically the hottest spot for New York’s elite. The Mercer also offers a visit to Lore Bathing Club, a nearby communal bathing experience that moves you through saunas, an infrared room, and a cold plunge. Getting into either on your own is notoriously difficult, so having both available just for staying here turns this from a hotel stay into something closer to a temporary membership in downtown's social scene.
Location & Neighborhood
The Mercer sits inside the SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District, which puts a lot of the cool neighborhood within easy reach (not just the shopping strip out front). The Drawing Center and the New York City Fire Museum are both close by if you want something more than browsing storefronts, and Washington Square Park and Greenwich Village are an easy walk south if you want to keep exploring.
Fanelli's, right on the opposite corner of Prince and Mercer, has been pouring drinks since 1847 and is about as unpretentious as SoHo gets, the kind of old-school tavern where Bob Dylan used to drink. A few doors down on Prince Street, Raoul's has been running since 1975, and it still looks almost exactly the way it did on opening night, think art-filled walls, steak au poivre, and a guest list that's pulled in everyone from Warhol to De Niro over the decades. Lore Bathing Club, a few minutes away, is the move if you want to turn part of your stay into a real wellness afternoon.
Pro tip: skip Broadway's chain stores in favor of Mercer, Greene, Wooster, and Crosby. That's where SoHo's cast-iron architecture is at its best, and it's where I take my own out-of-town guests when I want to impress them.
Fast Facts
Address: 147 Mercer Street, New York, NY 10012
Vibe: Sexy, chic, and somehow slightly under the radar
Rating: Five-star
Starting Rate:$890/night
Room Count: 73 rooms and suites
Our Favorite Thing About the Hotel: The access to Zero Bond, plus going to Sartiano's for dinner without ever having to leave the building.
Amenities: Sartiano's restaurant, café, and bar; 24-hour in-room dining; private guest lobby and library; The Mercer Facial with Dr. Barbara Sturm; private workout room by appointment; complimentary access to Zero Bond and Lore Bathing Club; 24-hour concierge; courtyard garden
Nearby Attractions: The best shopping in the city, Fanelli's, Lure Fishbar, Raoul's, the Drawing Center, Greenwich Village, and tons of cool art galleries
Airport: LGA, JFK
New York City, New York, United States
