It was an early start in Canada at 5am, but Air Canada and Global Entry conspired to make for an easy trip.
The Onyx still has a truly phenomenal staff. Friendly, interested, engaging, and fun; even when there’s a line at the front desk during the afternoon registration crush or a lobby full of impatient Germans waiting for their cabs to the airport. They used to be trained and led by Linda Chin, but now my friend Joe Capalbo is the general manager. (At that time, Joe ran the Hotel Marlowe just across the river in Cambridge.)
Joe and Dava Berman know all about my mixology problem and played right along by gathering the ingredients for a Nevada as a welcome package to room 1009. Super cool. The Nevada is a truly outstanding concoction.
Makings for the Nevada.
Here’s the result. I think there is enough stuff here to make one for everyone in the hotel.
An actual Nevada.
The only fly in the Onyx ointment is a distinct lack of glass showers. As a joke, Joe had the shower curtain liner removed from my shower before my arrival. Hilarious!
Not a glass shower.
Kimpton bathrooms have high quality fixtures.
Joe has a sneaky plan to get some glass showers installed. We’ll see whether he can pull it off. You see, the Onyx is not the same level of property as a Palomar or the Marlowe in the Kimpton constellation of hotels. But what they lack in glass showers they make up for in personality and verve. Hence the title of this posting. We use the force (glass shower heuristic) to find good hotels. The onyx causes a disturbance in the force.
Onyx rooms are kinda small. I like more room to spread out and cause trouble.
Bed room.
Entertainment console view.
Mixology fun on this trip did not end with the Nevada at the Onyx. In fact, they were just getting started. At the Cigital Boston launch party we hosted, we got a superb barman to make some real drinks. They went along nicely with the live jazz and the hors d’ouevres.
Mixology by Sage (until recently from drink) at the Boston office launch party.
Then there was dinner and a visit to drink where we were lucky enough to be ministered to by the incomparable Ezra Star. Needless to say, the cocktails were superb. We even worked in a lesson in reverse engineering. I take back all the bad things I said about drink. Well some of them anyway.
Reversing the Brooklyn courtesy of Ezra at drink.
A mid-day breakfast at Ferrara’s was just what the doctor ordered.
As our next trick, my band Where’s Aubrey played an impromptu concert in the Onyx lobby. I guess that’s one way to recover from a very late night at drink.
Back to drink (before a delicious and authentic Italian dinner at Bricco) for some cocktails with Ren Brown. Ren is playing with Gin and created the Gin Mai Tai 44
1 oz Ransom gin
1 oz Haymon gin
1 oz Lime
.5 oz PF orange curacao
1/8 oz Orgeat
Five enthusiastic showerheads for the Onyx. Come see for yourself how cool the staff is.
Getting back up in the saddle can be a challenge sometimes, especially after no fly July. Michal Penek and her crack staff at the Hotel Marlowe are doing what they can to make things easier. (United airlines, on the other hand, flew me up here with no upgrade as per usual. United sucks.)
Before you threaten to get out your tiny violin and play me a sad sad song, note that there has been lots of music lately too during the July hiatus. No time for that in airplane mode! The last hurrah on the music front was this weekend’s 20th anniversary Oopstock in the far reaches of the New Hampshire’s darkest jungles.
Drive in at 11pm? No problem. Everybody said hi. Super friendly and nice welcome, even to a zombie cruising on 3 hours of sleep. Thanks you guys.
San Pellegrino and cheese puffs, what more could you want?
Day came on early and bright in room 621.
Instrument pile in the corner.
The telescope, blinded by the light.
In Kimpton scuttlebutt news, Joe Capalbo is coming back to run the Marlowe after his stint at the Onyx, and Michal is headed to the Onyx to take his place. Musical chairs! Of course we selfishly like to see good management promoted, because it means more great service from Kimptons in the future.
Nothing but blue skies.
Five showerheads and a wary look at the upcoming travel schedule for the Hotel Marlowe.
In other Boston news, the usual visit to The Blue Room followed by a late night at drink took place on schedule and slightly over budget.
Palmer concocted a Fancy Free as follows:
2.25 oz Eagle rare (wheated bourbon)
.75 oz Luxardo
2 dashes Angostura Orange bitters
1 dash Angostura bitters
Express orange peel over drink (shaken and strained)
He’s Back: Joe Takes the Reigns at Hotel Marlowe (Boston)
October 17, 2013
Long ago in a galaxy far far away Joe Capalbo set the Kimpton hook by paying attention. Since that time, Joe has moved up the food chain, running the Onyx across town, and recently coming back as the General Manager of my Boston home away from home, the Hotel Marlowe.
Joe has been good to his word. He even listens to Where’s Aubrey. That’s above and beyond the call of duty.
Another personal note from Joe, this one featuring a song title.
The welcome setup in 621 reminds me of a miniature version of Christmas morning. Fun. Thanks Joe.
High information welcome package.
One of the four featured local craft cocktail bars mentioned above is Craigie on Main, which I can attest has a superior bar and some very skilled people working behind it. The coup de grace of a great bar is a real sazarac capability. The sazarac, though simple in concept, is always a very tricky drink to get just right. At Craigie they do it right (and they surprise you with it with a comped delivery after a delicious meal). Also of note is the fantastic wine list at Craigie. We enjoyed a stellar a 2010 Nit de Nin Priorat. The food was very good as well.
Craigie on Main makes a Mellow Yellow as follows:
1.5 Buffalo Trace bourbon
.5 Yellow chartreuse
.5 Becherovka (a new one on me, see below)
.25 Apricot liqueur
dash Regan’s orange bitters
Stir. Express orange peel and drop in.
Becherovka is a cinnamon bitters from the Czech Republic
Back at the Marlowe, some pictures from 621.
Glass shower de riguer
Bedroom
Bathroom mirror (mirror).
Telescope room.
But wait, there’s more. Day2 the plan was to bar hop with Kimpton bar strategist and Tequila master Jacques Bezuidenhout and his trusty associate Ken. It was a dangerous plan and well executed.
We started at the Blue Room with a very good meal indeed. Their bar program is really looking up these days, and the space is nicely spruced up. Then it was off to drink for the best visit ever. Ezra Star was in the house and surprised that Jacques and I arrived together. (The planet is really small.) She joined us for some tequila after her shift. The highlight of the evening other than the company was a tour of the entire incredible kitchen drink/sportello/menton trifecta by Barbara Lynch’s very natty GM John. Amazing place and excellent tour. And somehow I now seem to owe Josey Packard a bottle of Amer Picon?!
Suffice it to say that 6:30am rolled around way too early.
Five showerheads and a very high bar indeed for the Hotel Marlowe and my favorite Kimpton GM Joe Capalbo.
In flying news, United saw fit to upgrade me on two of three legs for this trip. I’ll be checking a bag from Boston, because I was given a bottle of Rhum to bring home to the bar. (Directions are: 1/8 oz lime with pure cane sugar and 2 oz rhum – or so.)
Rhum Agricole from Guadeloupe.
Hotel Marlowe Currently Experiencing No Winter
February 1, 2012
I’ve been coming to the Hotel Marlowe since the first week it opened. Even though my old buddy Joe Capalbo has moved across the river to run the Onyx (wonder where Linda Chin is now?), the Hotel Marlowe staff is in top form. I was greeted by name by everybody this morning when I arrived. That makes me wag my tail. I am so easily pleased it seems.
It’s a weird winter up here. Cold, but not very cold. And no snow (unlike last year). Here’s what it looks like out my window this afternoon from room 827.
Over the Charles toward the Museum of Science.
All rooms should have telescopes.
When I entered the gorgeous executive class room, I was greeted by a personal note and some loot from Justin the concierge. This loot thing rules.
Thanks for the loot Justin.
So does this room class actually. Great bathroom. I really do need to figure out how to use one of these dang huge bathtubs one of these years.
Without further ado, a picture or two. See previous entries for pictures of the glass shower cube and the gigantic tub.
An artsy image of the tub. Kimpton soap.
Into the sitting room (note telescope).
And get this. I stupidly left my mac power adapter at home again (in the kitchen plugged into the wall). When I called down to see if I could borrow one, Matthew solved the problem by walking over to the mac store and buying one for the hotel to have to let people borrow. Phenomenal service. Wow.
A Kimpton gem. Best in the business. Rock on Hotel Marlowe…you deserve more than five showerheads, but that is where the scale tops out.
The rest of the day went super well too. I gave a talk at Tufts attended by students from Tufts, Harvard and MIT and my old pal Dan Dennett. Then there was a small and delicious dinner at the blue room. The blue room has a new chef, so no more shrimp and yucca. I had to “settle” for the best duck I have ever eaten instead.
Finally it was off to drink for a nightcap or seven. We were expertly served by Ezra Star who made a number of delicious standards that I ordered up for my newbie friends (Liberal, Corpse Reviver #2). The mixological highlight was an experimental concoction that Ezra made on the fly. We’ll call it Ezra’s Star:
.5 Picon
.25 Luxardo
.75 Dry vermouth
1.5 El Dorado 12 year rum
drink is still the best bar in the world.
Boston rocks.
Irony and the Onxy Hotel, Boston
October 5, 2011
Boston was crammed to the gills this week. Hotel availability and prices reflected that. In fact, when I was setting this trip up I was shocked by the prices. Kimpton to the rescue. A quick note to the esteemed Linda Chin (GM at the Onyx) helped me reserve a room.
BTW, Linda’s staff is still top notch. Responsive. Nice. Helpful. Quick to solve a problem. The Onyx staff is among the best in the business. Thanks to Lauren Weir for reaching out before I arrived. Sadly, Joe the bartender did not remember me at all on Tuesday, nor has he become a mixologist in his spare time.
My arrival was complicated by showing up way early. The staff very graciously worked with me to get a room set up. After 30 minutes dinking around on the net in the lobby, everything was ready to go. This time, I was in room 909. (I think I was slated for 1007, but engineering was somehow involved…so something must have been busted.)
Not surprisingly, the rooms at the Onyx have not grown any bigger since I was last here—nicely appointed, but a bit cramped. My camera is still AWOL after my Watermellon Park Fest gig, so once again I have to use a canned picture from the hotel website. Maybe I need to buy a new camera.
See how great these pictures are when the hotels take them? The fisheye lens makes things seem bigger than they really are.
After all day in Boston, I returned to the room to find a personal note from Linda and the makings of a vodka beverage (horrors!!). This was all very nice, of course. I guess Lauren did not get the memo about vodka being verboten among those in the know. We’ll just pretend it never happened.
I’ll also have to pretend that the showers at the Onyx are glass and that they have sufficient shower pressure. They’re not and they really don’t. Dang. See the previous entry on the Onyx for some pictures.
In any case, I will keep Onyx at the five showerheads rating level. Excellent staff trumps ignorable showers this week.
Some good news to end the posting. Mixology in Boston is strong and appears to be spreading. I had no time to go to drink (trip to NY intervened and wrecked my big plans). Bravo at the Museum of Fine Arts offered up an acceptable beverage whose name escapes me now. (I am guessing at the ratios here.)
1.5 oz bombay sapphire gin
.5 chartreuse
.5 sweet vermouth (they used gallo almost for sure)
dash bitters (fee brothers generic)
And my favorite Boston restaurant the Blue Room served up a wonderfully complex drink called the smoke monster (I am guessing at ratios again):
1 oz cuervo silver
1 oz chichicapa mezcal
1 oz grapefruit
teaspoon honey syrup
dash bitters (probably angustora)
Almost forgot the irony bit. Guess where I am headed tonight…back to the Eventi in NY. What a ridiculous circumstance. Hey Linda, call ahead for me please!
Onyx Hotel, Boston, MA: A Kimpton gem
September 28, 2010
As you know, I am a fan of the Kimpton Hotel chain even though my experience with them over the last year has been spotty. I’m super pleased to have tried the Onyx Hotel in Boston this time. My plan was to find out whether the Hotel Marlowe should be replaced as my default Boston hotel. Probably.
After 6 hours of weather delays for an hour long flight, I arrived in Boston around 11pm. The front desk staff (Alen and “queen” Darnella) was exceptional at check in, making me feel right at home. True to form, my room was ready and was a match for my Intouch preferences. There was a welcome note from Linda Chin the GM and a smal bottle of Merlot. Very nice.
I joined Joe the bartender for a night cap and we discussed mixology. Joe was interested, but not very knowledgeable. One day maybe all good hotels will have real mixologists?!
On to the room. The Onyx has fairly small rooms, nicely appointed but a bit cluttered. My room (808) appears to be a standard layout. Here’s what the bathroom looks like.
Unfortunately the plumbing was suffering some problems when I arrived and it was too late to get things fixed. But when alerted in the morning, the staff was very responsive.
Now to the shower, featuring the kind of shower curtain that gives me the heeby-jeebies, over a plastic tub. Horrors.
The water pressure was acceptable, but nothing to write home about. And the tiles are real tiles even though they are shiny enough that they look plastic. It’s a close call on this website’s criteria.
Here is a picture of the controls.
A real surprise are the containers of shampoo and conditioner. As one of my friends says, this is a design just waiting for unscrupulous use of Nair. Amazing that some of us get paid to think like that, huh?
The Onxy comes out on top of Hotel Marlowe because of its staff, which is the best trained staff I have come across in the last handful of Kimpton visits. The Eventi hotel in NY pales in comparison to this hotel. Real management is the key.
When I sent the Eventi GM Thomas Mathes a critical but fair note suggesting some improvements, he ignored my feedback. In one fell swoop, Eventi is permanently off the list. Too bad more Kimpton GM’s are not like Linda Chin.
On the strength of its staff, the Onyx earns four of five showerheads and a place on the list of hotels I will return to.
NYE in high style (Palomar Philadelphia)
January 1, 2011
Somehow noplasticshowers has taken on an unanticipated minor life of its own. As you know, the mission here is to provide candid reviews of hotels (focused on showers) from the point of view of a spoiled world traveller. I like nothing more than a nice boutique hotel and I have done what I can to develop a list of places I like over the last ten years. One of my favorite chains of boutiques is the Kimpton Group. I think I started going to Kimptons in 1996 or so and I have stayed at 13 Kimpton hotels in the years since.
Even with a preferred chain, things are never perfect. Some of my Kimpton-faced reviews do have a snarky flavor to them, but I also do my share of positive reinforcement when things are done right. As it turns out, positive reinforcement may be so rare among hotel guests that it can result in very nice side effects! Here’s a story about that.
After a disappointing stay ay a Kimpton in NY this September, I had a superb time in Boston at the Onyx (likewise a Kimpton). It seems, not surprisingly that hotels with strong GMs (Linda Chin at the Onyx) have motivated and well-trained staffs, while weaker GMs are so busy putting out fires (Thomas Mathes at the non-Eventi) they never develop any real rapport with their guests. So what better way to give kudos to a very good GM than to email their superiors?!
I sent some email to Mike DeFrino (Senior Vice President Hotel Operations) and Rick Colangelo (Regional Vice President Operations, East Coast) complimenting Linda, and lo and behold, Mike and Rick read their email like everyone else! Here’s a snippet of our ensuing conversation:
I would like to see the Kimpton properties share information about guests and guests preferences. Perhaps you guys could use the InTouch network for that? For example, knowing the kind of room I like at the Palomar in SF should inform your computers all over the country about the kind of room I am likely to be satisfied with elsewhere.
Things all seem very ad hoc as it is now, and as a guest I find it inefficient to “train” 13 hotels one at a time! Some properties keep track of these things, and some (including 70Park and the Hotel Marlowe) do not. Some properties run a very tight ship with well-trained staff (like the Onyx in Boston) and some need some work (like the Eventi in NY which is still experiencing serious birthing pains). Seems to me that centralizing and “personalizing” things even more than is done with the too vague to matter preferences in my folio would encourage chain loyalty.
Mike responded in a very positive manner and went on to introduce me to the “Queen of Loyalty” Natalie White. Natalie and I have been in touch since, and I developed some detailed feedback for Natalie and Shirley King to use in their forward planning. Natalie and Shirley have both been incredibly open to suggestion and are also genuinely pleased to get it.
Here’s the kicker. Echoes of my feedback resulted in direct contact from the new GM at the Hotel Marlowe, Joe Capalbo, who is looking forward to winning my business back. He sent me a nice note and a completely unnecessary holiday gift. (It worked—I’ll be going back to the Marlowe in early January.) Natalie sent a nice gift as well and a personal note thanking me for my help. It is gratifying enough to have your ideas taken seriously, but a little unexpected gift is nice too.
Natalie and Shirley also helped make my visit to Philly for NYE special. I’m celebrating with my companion of many years and some of our best friends. We checked in to the Palomar in Philly and were warmly welcomed by the entire staff, including Sean Flanigan. When we arrived in our beautiful corner suite we were greeted with a bottle of wine, snacks, and a note.
Without further ado, on to the shower situation. The bathroom in the suite includes a walk in glass shower and a huge tub. Room enough for 6 people in the tub we figure. As usual, the tub remains untouched after a brief stay. One NYE-related glitch to report: when we got up to shower around 11 there was no hot water in our shower or our friends’. I would say this was mostly our fault for staying up too late drinking champagne.
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| A nicely appointed Kimpton sink graces the bathroom as well.
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Our friends did not have a huge bathroom in their portion of the suite, but theirs was nice anyway. We figure they can use our tub if necessary (sadly, no).
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All in all, the Palomar is a great location for NYE in the heart of Philadelphia, close to cool thrift shops (not to mention shoe shops), great restaurants, and top shelf mixology locations. Philadelphia is a great city. Of course, the best part of all from this trip was ringing in the new year with dear friends.
The Palomar would deserve a five showerhead rating if the hot water glitch had not occurred. Great staff, very friendly and responsive. The doormen were having a blast when we got back from dinner shortly after midnight. The property is beautifully put together. Maybe next time we won’t get up so late.
For NYE dinner, we had an excellent meal at Tinto. Excellent tapas featuring wine pairing with squab over duck confit as one of the meals. Yum. Before dinner we stopped in for a drink next door at Village Whiskey where Keith concocted some gorgeous beverages. I called for a Picon Punch:
Prepare a highball with ice
Drizzle 1 teaspoon of Grenadine (make it yourself please) over the ice
Slowly Pour 2.5 oz of Amer Picon (Torani Amer) over the ice
Add 2 oz of sparkling water
Float 1 oz of Brandy on the top
Do not stir or mix. Sip slowly and experience the flavor change as the beverage level drops in your glass.
Let the new year begin: 1/1/11!
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