Baltimore’s restaurants may not yet be on the Michelin radar, but two of the city’s hotels made it onto the travel guide’s list of top places to stay in the United States.
The Ivy Hotel and the Sagamore Pendry Baltimore were among the Michelin Guide’s 2024 hotel recommendations. The listing bestows one, two or three “keys” for each recommended hotel, similar to its three-star system for restaurants.
The Ivy Hotel earned two keys, denoting “an exceptional stay.” The guide praised the Mount Vernon hotel’s “lush fabrics,” bathrooms with heated limestone floors, “small-but-lovely spa” and “verdant courtyard” with food and drinks from in-house restaurant Magdalena.
The Ivy, the city’s sole Relais & Châteaux property and one of the country’s only Black-owned boutique hotels, is “distinctly Baltimorean in its red-brick beauty (but) serves up a brand of luxury hospitality that’ll be familiar to travelers the world over,” the guide writes.
The Sagamore Pendry earned one key — “a very special stay” — from the Michelin Guide, which called the Fells Point hotel “anything but typical” and lauded its “generous” spaces, nautical-tinged decor, “luxe touches” and “encyclopedically stocked whiskey bar” at the Cannon Room.
A spokesperson for the hotel said the designation was “a testament to the dedication and passion our team at Sagamore Pendry Baltimore brings to crafting unforgettable experiences for our guests.”
The Baltimore hotels are among just shy of 300 across the U.S. to be awarded a key (or two or three). The list includes 16 three-key hotels, 70 two-key hotels, and 207 one-key hotels. The travel guide said they are “the highlights” of a broader, 5,000-property list of hotels around the world.
In addition to the Michelin recognition, the Pendry was named to Condé Nast Traveler’s list of the 15 best hotels in the mid-Atlantic in 2023. The Ivy made Conde Nast’s readers’ choice list in 2020, 2021 and 2022.