Calling itself “Soho’s Most Sophisticated Urban Retreat,” Hotel Hugo occupies a prime location bordered by Tribeca and a comfortable walk from Greenwich Village, the Meatpacking District and the Hudson River.
In such a hip locale, it’d be understandable if Hotel Hugo and its crew ran a hyper-trendy, self-aware and forever lost in uber-smug New York importance. There are no such issues as Hugo offers friendly and classy staff support amidst a big city sanctuary.
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Essentially a sliver climbing above shipping warehouses, Hotel Hugo qualifies as a boutique hotel by New York standards. The property is large enough for a Business Center, Fitness Center and two rooftop lounges – Bar Hugo and Azul Rooftop.
Bar Hugo is the more formal space with spiffy bartenders mixing classic and house speciality cocktails. It’s perfect for business meetings of after work rendezvous. Azul is a casual, Cuban-themed hangout and more of a locals’ destination.
The rooms are comfortable and intimate. The latter is hotel code for “small,” and Hotel Hugo’s rooms do run small as the hotel itself is wedged into it neighborhood tightly with business, restaurants and equally tight apartment spaces. So, the rooms are not luxurious, but they are welcoming and offer a safe zone away from the fuss of New York.
A prime attraction for Hugo is its adjoining restaurant, Il Principe. The small Italian cucina offers an ambitious menu of classic dishes and house specialties served up by a dedicated and attentive staff. The bistro specializes in some of the finest individual desserts available in the city.
To digress for a moment, it’s trendy lately to spell Hotel Hugo’s New York neighborhood and its neighbors in their official, abbreviation-aware forms – SoHo and TriBeCa. That’s to remind folks of the words’ origins. Those city areas started life as South of Houston (“HOW-ston”) and Triangle Below Canal before the sheer exhaustion of pronouncing all of those proletariat words made abbreviations absolutely necessary.
For most of the last 100 years, sentence capitalization was adequate for these New York zones. Now, we’re supposed to go back to write them with their name initials. Let’s not look for yet another “wink and an upturned nose” way to distinguish visitors from New York residents. Those New Yorkers who demand such behavior need to climb down out of their own backsides because Hugo is in Soho. It’s not hU©0 in $øhΩ with four Ms and a silent Q.
Hotel Hugo isn’t pretentious, so we’ll spare its name and neighborhood with the same courtesy. The joint veers away from disaffected Manhattan smug and welcomes the visitor with peace and privacy.
