The Drisco Hotel, a member of The Leading Hotels of The World

The Drisco Hotel, a member of The Leading Hotels of The World

The Drisco occupies a hotel built in 1866 in Tel Aviv's American-German Colony, surrounded by the historical houses of that quiet neighbourhood, a ten-minute walk from Alma Beach and just over a kilometre from the Jaffa Flea Market. John and George Drisco raised it as their own hotel before the Templar hotelier Ernst Hardegg took over and renamed it the Jerusalem Hotel, a stopover Thomas Cook and Mark Twain both used on the way to Jerusalem; a Mark Twain salon inside keeps that history close rather than filed behind a plaque. Forty-two rooms sit across three floors, small enough that breakfast never turns into a scrum, though the hotel keeps a hall for meetings anyway. Children under twelve aren't accepted and those twelve to seventeen need an adult with them, which settles who this suits: couples and solo travellers after a slow city break, not families with young kids. A Techno Gym, spa treatment rooms, and a doctor on call cover the practical side, while a rooftop facing the sea and a garden offer quieter corners than the street outside. George & John, the in-house restaurant, was ranked among the Middle East and North Africa's fifty best, a claim few forty-two-room hotels can back up alongside membership in both Relais & Châteaux and The Leading Hotels of The World. Valet parking runs 120 NIS a day, or there is a cheaper unaffiliated public lot down the street; airport transfer costs 105 USD one way. The hotel is not kosher, worth knowing before booking around Rosh Hashanah. What lingers afterward is less the amenity list than the fact of sleeping inside a building older than the state around it. A forty-two-room hotel built in 1866 in Tel Aviv's American-German Colony, adults only, with a restaurant ranked among the Middle East's fifty best. Guests get a Mark Twain salon, a sea-facing rooftop, and a history no hotel nearby can match.