Mandarin Oriental Boston

Mandarin Oriental Boston

Boylston Street runs past the door, the Boston Public Library one way, the Prudential Center and Newbury Street's shops the other, and the doorman at Mandarin Oriental Boston is already stepping forward before the car has properly stopped. This is a compact hotel by Back Bay standards, 148 rooms over eight floors, and it wears that scale well, closer to the residential-style accommodations the hotel describes than to a convention hotel. It holds a double Forbes Five-Star distinction, for the hotel and separately for its spa, a pairing few Boston addresses can claim, and the rooms back it up: the hotel calls its accommodations the most spacious in Back Bay, running from 409-square-foot Deluxe Kings through 1,044-square-foot suites to a two-bedroom family suite past 1,500 square feet. The spa runs to a Crystal Steam Room, Vitality Pools and a Couple's Spa Suite, alongside a sauna, massage rooms and a gym, and downstairs, Ramsay's Kitchen serves Gordon Ramsay's food under his own restaurant brand. Business travelers get a conference hall and event facilities on site; families get connecting and family suites plus babysitting, though there's no swimming pool, only a spa tub, so anyone picturing a poolside afternoon should look elsewhere. Small pets travel under 5 kg for a surcharge, with a separate pet deposit due at check-in, and a $160 daily deposit covers any damage. Extra beds run $50 a night. What stays with you afterward is less the Forbes plaque than the doorman who was already moving before you'd stepped out of the car. Mandarin Oriental Boston sits on Boylston Street in Back Bay, a double Forbes Five-Star hotel and spa few in Boston can match. Suites run past 1,500 square feet and Ramsay's Kitchen brings Gordon Ramsay to dinner, though there's no pool, only a spa tub.