Review: Hotel Saint Vincent

Why book?
New Orleans is so much more than the French Quarter. There, big brand hotels provide a front porch to the surreal tapestry of architecture, music, food, drink, and humanity crashing together, but the city beyond holds worlds within worlds if you care to look for it. The splashy, 75-room Hotel Saint Vincent, set in the Lower Garden District just beyond downtown, provides proximity to—yet sanctuary from—the masses. Its myriad porches, shady palms, and subtle, attentive service are a gateway to Uptown where time slows down and light filters through live oaks the same way it did a century ago. The Saint Vincent’s amenities alone could occupy you for a day and a night—two bars, two restaurants, a shop, and a pool—and the rooms, outfitted with sleek furniture, moody hues, and psychedelic, candy-colored wallpaper, strike a balance between serene and playful.

Set the scene:
In keeping with the atmosphere of some of the world’s best hotels, the Saint Vincent feels like both a respite and a party—a place where anyone might show up and anything could happen. From Austin hotel and hospitality royalty Liz Lambert, Larry McGuire, and Tom Moorman of the MML Group, it’s a puzzle of design and comfort that marries old European flair with sharp American inventiveness. In its opening week, the crowd was a mix of visitors from Austin, young New Orleans creatives, a handful of starchier Uptown types, and curious neighbors. At its opening event, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band performed alongside the artist St. Vincent while a dance party manifested in the guest-only Chapel Bar. On a sleepier weekday, guests worked poolside on laptops, hair-of-the-dog margaritas in-hand, and a few kids splashed around.

The backstory:
Originally built by Irish immigrant and philanthropist Margaret Haughery as The Saint Vincent’s Infant Asylum in 1861, the hotel has been a stately brick anchor along Magazine Street for 160 years. Its iron filigree encased front porches and courtyards were home to unwed mothers until the 1970s after which it fell into disrepair. Lambert, who sold the majority of her Bunkhouse Group to The Standard in 2015, first encountered the property, which had been turned into a guesthouse in 2014. In 2020, Lambert joined forces with McGuire and Moorman to reimagine the imposing Italianate monument as a Deco meets disco mansion, which wouldn’t be out of place along the Riviera or in a Dario Argento film.

The rooms:
Rooms are a cheeky marriage of moody paint from Farrow & Ball, floor to ceiling windows, vintage art and objects, some from Merchant House, the modern antiques store down the block, and custom furniture from Lambert McGuire Design. The bathrooms are done in kicky coral and salmon tile, and bubbly, marbled wallpaper in a print dubbed “Topless Sunbathers” from Voutsa. Minibars are outfitted with a mix of high-low drinks and snacks—Scribe pinot noir, Zapp’s Voodoo chips, lavender cookies from Café Warshafsky, and Sour Patch Kids gummies. A golden box of products curated by Elle’s Boutique and Erin Lee Smith of ByGeorge Beauty, is packed with delights including Wonder Valley Body Oil, Here and Now hemp-zen night tincture, and Love Seen faux eyelashes. Nearly every room is unique—suites with sitting rooms and window seats, top-floor nooks with sloped eaves where the nuns used to reside, rooms that feel like those of a first-class, 1920s ocean liner—and nearly half have private verandas. Each is stocked with DS & Durga toiletries and plush robes designed by Lambert with FARWEST that will make you feel like a grown-up Ferris Bueller.

Food and drink:
The turquoise and pink Elizabeth Street Café, a French-Vietnamese Austin import, greets guests alongside the hotel all day for coffee and pastries. Bún, spring rolls, and bahn mí appear for lunch and dinner alongside cocktails and natural wines. Inside the hotel, the Paradise Lounge and San Lorenzo restaurant feel as if they might have been transported from a grand Riviera resort of yore. Paradise is outfitted with tropical murals by Ann Marie Auricchio, tiling inspired by the hotel’s original floors, a Wurlitzer upright, and a custom bar by local millworker Daniel Bell. The menu is a mix of classic cocktails and twists on old standards. At the San Lorenzo, chef Matthew Ridgway’s coastal Italian cooking—fresh crudo, shrimp cocktail, squid ink pasta, spaghetti vongole, and grilled swordfish—is accompanied by MML’s smart, surprising wine list. The guest-only Chapel Bar is divided into lots of luxe nooks where it’s easy to imagine that gossip and cocktails flow freely beneath the stained glass and ebullient collection of nude paintings arranged throughout.

The area:
The Lower Garden District, once sleepy, is picking up steam these days. Peppered with chic and quirky shops—Sunday Shop, St. Claude Social Club, Century Girl Vintage, Merchant House, NOLA Mix Records—and plenty of dive bars, it’s imminently walkable and always neighborly. In the spring, jazz at Coliseum Square makes for an all-city picnic, while summer finds locals cooling their heels with go-cups of frozen Margaritas at corner bar Barrel Proof.

The service:
The hospitality at the Saint Vincent is top-notch. Especially in this post-pandemic moment where staffing restaurants, bars, and hotels is a challenge, the Saint Vincent’s people and service are friendly, informed, accommodating, and stylishly outfitted—staff uniforms were created in-house and are enviable even by civilian standards.

For families: Families are welcome.

Accessibility: Hotel Saint Vincent is compliant with all ADA requirements including a choice of three different room types that are mobility/hearing accessible.

Anything left to mention?
Stop through lobby shop, ByGeorge, an Austin-based boutique. Though petite, it’s filled with eclectic baubles—vintage watches, FARWEST robes, a rainbow of fragrances and candles, swimwear by Dries Van Noten, objects by Lorenzi Milano—far beyond the usual hotel gift shop. Don’t miss the exhibition featuring the Black Masking Indians’ stunning and intricate costumes housed temporarily in Saint Vincent’s event space, as well as the Nuns in Purgatory pieces along the stairwell, a whimsically morbid collection of prints by artist Julie Speed.