The Palm Court
At The Plaza Hotel · 1F
The Plaza's century-old dining room and the original home of Afternoon Tea in New York. Under a stained-glass skylight that remains the most beautiful ceiling in Midtown, it's the benchmark other hotel restaurants still measure themselves against.
Neighborhood
Midtown · Central Park
Atmosphere
Bright and airy in a way that defies its grandeur — the glass dome floods white tablecloths with natural light and makes conversation feel easy. Social without being loud, it carries the rare quality of a room that's genuinely happy to have you.
Key features
Afternoon Tea is a full ritual: three-tiered stands of finger sandwiches and pastries, loose-leaf teas poured tableside, unhurried time. Eloise lived upstairs, Fitzgerald drank nearby — a century of fiction and film has passed through this room, and somehow that history makes the scones taste better.
Location
The Palm Court · 1F
768 5th Ave, New York, NY 10019
About the hotel
The hotel sits at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Central Park in a French Renaissance château that has been a defining pillar of New York's identity since 1907. While its history is vast, it remains immortalized in pop culture as the grand playground where Kevin McCallister checked in alone in the 1992 classic, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. Walking into the Grand Lobby is a visceral reminder that some spaces simply don’t need updating. The gold leaf, the massive crystal chandeliers, and the endless white marble represent a standard that is still setting the bar for the city’s public face.
Stay at The Plaza Hotel
Reserve a room, then explore bars, dining, and more on property—starting with this spot.
More from this hotel
Everything else worth exploring on property.
