Inside the hotel that makes the Met Gala run

This article is part of FT Globetrotter’s guide to New York City

I am at The Mark, standing behind the concierge desk on a Monday. I am sandwiched between the chief concierge, Maria Wittorp, and her colleague John Sieber, to see what they do.

Maria unravels a scroll on a bouquet of flowers, checks the message for accuracy and sends it upstairs.

John calls a guest to confirm that he has booked them a table that night at Chez Fifi, one of Manhattan’s most coveted reservations.

A woman appears from around the corner, smiles, sniffs the perfect circle of preserved roses on the desk and disappears.

The phone rings, John answers it, says, “Yes sir, we do have a house doctor,” and calls a local physician. Guest and doctor are connected to discuss low blood pressure within minutes.

The rose-smeller reappears and asks how much a room costs here (the answer is between $1,395 and $100,000 per night). John directs her to the front desk, across The Mark’s famous black-and-white-striped lobby floor. “Does this happen a lot?” I ask, watching the woman, who is, it seems, loitering. “No,” says John, and a security member quietly escorts her out.

The Mark is a unique hotel, situated on an ideal corner of Manhattan’s Upper East Side, two blocks from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and one from Central Park. Last year, it was deemed number 43 on the World’s 50 Best Hotels list, as one of only two American hotels included. It is Anna Wintour’s preferred hotel, so come the Met Gala, the annual star-studded charity event on the first Monday of May, A-list celebrities take over the building, packing it with glam squads, seamstresses and racks of couture. After months of preparation, the foyer becomes “the red carpet before the red carpet”. I wanted to understand what goes into catering to these extreme VIPs, from the stars on Met Gala day to some of the world’s wealthiest people on the others. So here I am, standing between Maria and John.

A couple approaches the desk. They look to be in their late fifties.

“Hi,” the man says. “We want to get married.”

“Congratulations!” Maria responds. “We can help you. Once a couple who met in the lobby got married right here, at the concierge desk! We were their witnesses!”

They raise their eyebrows, interested. They’re eloping and could use witnesses, too. John hands them Evian bottles, at room temperature as per their request, and they’re swept upstairs to look at suites.

The first thing I notice about The Mark is its gleam. Designed by the famed Jacques Grange, shiny pops of colour abound. (The rooms, I discover later, are decisively neutral.) I approach the grand 1927 landmark building to find Kaspia, its caviar bar, splashed with Tiffany blue. The Assouline designer bookstore is fire-engine red. Out front sits a high-end hot dog cart striped black and white, like the lobby. It’s as if Karl Lagerfeld and a Lichtenstein painting had a baby. Everyone matches this aesthetic — even Maria. 

When we first meet, Maria, 60, takes me to the hotel’s Jean-Georges Vongerichten restaurant (orange) for a coffee. Her blonde hair and red lipstick flare against a pristine black suit, her blue eyes made bigger by thick, geometric frames. Originally from Sweden, Maria speaks quickly, interrupts herself, laughs often, and blames her skill as a concierge on her extreme ADHD. (“I thought it was why I was a bit weird, but in this job, it is a big, big plus.”)

Maria started as a private butler at the St Regis in 1991. For a week, she cared for Lady Raine Spencer, the stepmother of Diana, Princess of Wales, powdering her down after the bath. A mentor nudged her towards concierge work. Thirty-five years on, she wears the crossed keys of Les Clefs d’Or on her lapel, signifying her membership of the industry’s most elite guild.

“One of the fundamental rules to being a good concierge is to have 100 per cent curiosity and zero judgment,” she tells me. “I train my team from love. You have to love your guests, yourselves, your team.”

You have to love them? I ask.

“Yes,” she says. “You just do.”

She tells me about a Qatari family who stayed at the hotel and kept buying Pomeranian dogs. They had seven dogs. When they needed to get them home to Doha, they turned to Maria.

“We became PhDs in international dog transport,” she says. Each dog needed a human travel escort, so Maria cold-called a shelter in Doha, whose owner flew five employees to New York to bring the animals back. Then there were two — the family’s most precious Pomeranians.

“Did you . . . go to Doha?” I ask.

Maria pulls up a video of herself and one of The Mark’s beloved doormen, Timmy Giannakodis, in the back of a car in Qatar, dancing to Arabic music, Maria wearing an abaya and Timmy wearing a thobe. “We were in the air for 30 hours and on the ground for 18 to deliver these dogs,” she says, laughing proudly at my incredulity. The garments were a gift, but they weren’t paid beyond expenses. “We didn’t ask for anything,” she says. “They had stayed with us for two years. They were like family.”

She then tells me that on closing night of The Phantom of the Opera’s 35-year Broadway run, she hired the three leads to serenade a guest in the penthouse suite, in full costume, on his birthday.

On Met Gala day, The Mark’s service shifts into overdrive. Around 60 celebrities stay each year, the list itself a status symbol influenced by who’s hosting the gala and who’s otherwise having a moment. In 2024, it included Kylie Jenner and Doja Cat; in 2025, Charli XCX and Cynthia Erivo. This year’s Met Gala, themed “Fashion is Art”, will be hosted by Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman and Venus Williams.

Fashion houses such as Dior and Versace take over suites at The Mark, transforming them into makeshift ateliers, with requests ranging from extra steamers to removing all the furniture. Glam squads work all day, preparing their muses for the big reveal.

Around 4pm, with the streets closed off, photographers ready and red-carpet pristine, security takes control of the lift. Staff are stationed on each floor with walkie-talkies. Anna Wintour leaves first.

Maria leads transportation, which, her colleague says, is “the most crucial aspect of the entire day”. This is where she shines. Each celebrity is assigned a number. Holding a file deemed “The Bible,” Maria will call “10” across the walkie-talkies and down will come, say, Rihanna, into a lobby packed shoulder to shoulder with other stars. Rihanna will step on to the red carpet for her first photos, then into a car, then whisked off to ascend the museum’s famous steps.

“It’s like a ballet,” says Maria, “It’s just next, next, next, next.” (With the whole hotel booked and a slew of assistants running errands, John at the concierge desk has a rare break. “I may as well have popcorn,” he says.)

From around 9.30pm, the hotel resets as an after-party base camp: stars return, change outfits, gossip in the lobby over The Mark-branded french fries, then head back out into the night.

Meanwhile, Meta rents out the hotel’s 10,000-square-foot penthouse every year — the largest suite in North America — for an influencers’ Met Gala watch party. I poked my head into this penthouse. It has a grand piano, 26-foot-high ceilings, five bedrooms and a private gym. (Come winter, a narrow skating rink is installed on its roof terrace. At Christmas, it can be booked for $250,000 and guests can decorate a tree with Bergdorf Goodman ornaments, and watch a private performance of The Nutcracker.)

The morning after the Met Gala, the hotel empties out. The furniture is put back in place. Hundreds of garment bags are returned. And the Mark returns to “normal”.

I stay at The Mark to experience the receiving end of what they do. As a guest, the hotel feels like a big wink: a grand clubhouse where you’re suddenly a member, slipping up and down the small lifts, squeezing around tight, dimly lit hallways, dipping out of your outrageously large suite and down to the bar. The staff will enable you. They’ll set you up with a blow-dry you don’t need, then message you from the concierge desk to say, “You look fabulous!” They’ll slip treats to your dog, because The Mark loves dogs, allowing them virtually everywhere. All that cooing and petting gives the place a warm informality. A hotel can’t feel stuffy when you’re drinking a Spritz next to a basset hound.

The needs of a typical guest at The Mark are different from the average person’s needs. The hotel is independently owned by real estate developer Izak Senbahar, so no one is staying on hotel points, and everyone knows the language of immense luxury. “Our guests prefer to have massages in their room,” the hotel’s general manager Elon Kenchington tells me. “They don’t want to walk through a public space in a bathrobe. That’s not our type of guest.” 

Take The Mark Restaurant by Jean-Georges. I expected it to be a land of small sharing plates, as is the current standard in New York dining. Instead it’s more of a luxury take on The Cheesecake Factory, with a massive, indulgent menu ranging from guacamole to pizza to sashimi to steak. Cocktails go for between $26 and $79. When I dine, I see two young girls in matching pyjamas eat burgers with their mother, who happily drinks a glass of wine. A couple chews quietly in the corner, one with a bandage around her chin. Three ladies enter wearing sparkly mini dresses and order Martinis. 

At first I don’t understand why the restaurant is committed to quite so many cuisines. But then I realise that this is luxury’s version of convenience, a classy haven for private people, where they can order their precise craving and so can their kids, where you can bring your emotional support dog and the room is beautiful.

On my last visit, I sit with Maria in a tiny back room behind the concierge desk. She shows me the details they keep on guests: he likes golf, she likes Bon Jovi and shops at St John, the son likes Lego.

As a guest, I wasn’t quite sure how and when to avail myself of Maria and John’s services. Do they charge? (“No, the service is included.”) How much do I tip? (“Up to you.”) I ask Maria how she feels about catering to people so used to this level of care.

“What I say to myself when I’m asked to do some crazy things is this: ‘It’s because they can,’” she says. “A little $80,000 vase for a birthday gift, or clothing for $300,000 — they can. As a concierge, it’s actually nicer to work for people with that kind of income. There’s no limitation for me, either. You want the elephant in the room? I will literally figure out how to get the elephant in the room.”

Earlier that day, a woman had approached the desk. She was licking a chocolate ice cream cone and looking for a hair appointment. Maria directed her one floor up to the Frédéric Fekkai salon, but the woman hesitated, so Maria called upstairs for her. As she rustled for her credit card, Maria held her ice cream. Then Maria booked her a facial nearby for the following day. “Thank you,” the woman said finally. “Everything was going wrong. You really fixed my day.”

I tell Maria that I’ve been thinking about her comment about loving everyone. Even if they hand her their drippy cone, or send her to Doha. It’s easy to judge the ultra-wealthy. Most of us reserve compassion for people who have less. But in elite hospitality, if you let yourself resent or judge, you’d probably lose your mind.

“You have to love,” she insists. “Everyone needs to be seen, heard and felt. There’s something very primitive about those emotions. And listen, our guests can have everything. Another yacht, house, trip. Can you imagine, always chasing? It’s very tiring, actually. I really think they’re tired.”

Before I leave, Maria presses a stuffed Highland cow into my hand. A guest had brought her dogs a pile of gifts. “There are too many,” she says as I resist. “Just give this to Tony.” Alongside the elopement, the loiterer and the house doctor that day, she remembered — of course — the name of my dog.

You can read more of our New York guide here, including where to drink wine, see and buy textiles, eat after hours, get a men’s haircut and shop for women’s shoes. You’ll find food tours of Flushing, Queens and Red Hook, Brooklyn, a peek inside the city’s backgammon subculture and some great routes to Citi Bike across the boroughs

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