REVIEWS OF HOTEL EXECUTIVE CLUB LOUNGES, KIDS CLUBS AND MORE.
During our stay at LUMA Hotel Times Square, we had dinner one evening at AperiBar, the restaurant right there in the hotel, and it turned out to be one of the best meals of our entire New York trip. Lovely quiet setting, beautiful lighting, and food that was genuinely amazing from start to finish.
AperiBar has a really relaxed but polished feel to it, with an open kitchen at the back of the room where you can watch the wood-fired oven doing its thing and see the pizzas coming out fresh. The dining room itself is dressed in soft, warm lighting with decorative panels on the walls and a lovely rug underfoot, giving the whole space a calm, intimate atmosphere despite being right in the middle of Times Square.
We all went in different directions for drinks, which felt fitting given the menu. Our son had a fresh cranberry juice, and our daughter went for pineapple juice. I had the pink fizz mocktail, made with grenadine, cranberry, club soda and lime juice, and it was amazing, properly refreshing with a lovely balance of sweet and tart. My wife had the zesty pineapple, a mix of pineapple juice, ginger beer, lime juice, club soda and mint, and she loved it just as much.
For starters, the kids had a bread basket each with focaccia, one plate with butter and one with olive oil. I had the insalata di anguria, which I'd never tried before, watermelon, cheese, baby arugula, red onion, sesame and lime. It was such a lovely surprise, sweet but genuinely refreshing rather than heavy. My wife had the arancini balls, made with basil, peas, leeks, Sorrento lemon aioli and gremolata, and she absolutely loved them.
The kids shared a beautifully fresh, soft breaded chicken, paired with rigatoni for our son and linguine for our daughter. My wife had the spaghetti d'estate, made with summer squash, burrata, parmigiano, lemon and basil, and she loved every bite. I went for the pizza greca, topped with Santorini tomato, cheese, kalamata olives, red onion and marjoram pesto. It was amazing, a proper generous size, and I finished the whole thing.
By dessert, the kids and my wife were properly full, so the three of them shared two desserts between them: a ricotta cheesecake with vanilla bean, strawberry compote, aged Modena balsamic and pistachios, and a cioccolata torta, a flourless chocolate cake with mascarpone and roasted hazelnuts. I had a lemon sorbet, a lovely light way to finish after that generous pizza.
Dinner at AperiBar was fantastic from start to finish, and honestly one of the standout meals of the entire trip. Every single dish was amazing, from the watermelon salad I'd never have thought to order in a million years, right through to that flourless chocolate cake at the end that had my wife and kids fighting over the last bite. What struck me most was just how consistent everything was, there wasn't a single weak dish across the whole table, and with four very different orders between us, that's no small thing.
The drinks deserve a mention of their own too. That pink fizz mocktail I had was properly memorable, the kind of thing I'd order again without even glancing at the rest of the menu, and my wife felt exactly the same about her zesty pineapple. It's a small detail, but a restaurant that puts that much thought into a non-alcoholic drinks menu tends to put the same care into everything else, and that certainly held true here.
The service throughout was great as well, attentive without ever feeling intrusive, and the staff clearly knew the menu inside out, happy to talk us through anything we weren't sure about. Add in that lovely quiet setting, the open kitchen glowing away with the wood-fired oven ticking over in the background, and the beautiful soft lighting throughout the dining room, and it made for a proper relaxed evening without ever having to leave the hotel. There's something wonderfully easy about a meal like that, no taxis, no walking back through Times Square afterwards, just heading straight up to the room once the last plate was cleared.
For a family with young children, it also struck the right balance between feeling like a proper night out and still being completely relaxed about the kids sharing plates, asking for extra bread, or taking their time with dessert. Nobody rushed us, and nobody made it feel like anything less than a normal, welcome part of the evening.
If you're staying at LUMA Hotel Times Square, do not skip dinner at AperiBar, it's well worth the visit, and honestly, it might just end up being the meal you talk about most from the whole trip.
We are a family of 4 - mother, father and two children. Our aim is to travel the world and review all travel opportunities to help other families.
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