Charleston, South Carolina
The Pinch
Southern Comforts
What it is
Stylish, apartment-style rooms and suites—each with a kitchen and washer-dryer—make this new hotel feel like home. Bonus: an intimate spa.
What it isn't
Hangry. The property has a Francophile-worthy oyster bar on the ground floor and a soon-to-open restaurant with a flickering fireplace in a 19th-century freestanding neoclassical house.
What we think
If you called it the best of both worlds, you’d be right. The Pinch combines the greatest elements of short-term house rentals (fully stocked kitchens and en-suite washer-dryers) with those of hotels (a doting 24-hour concierge, daily housekeeping). There are no “bad” rooms, here, and each option is so carefully designed it looks like it was lifted from Cabana magazine, with curated art pieces, custom-made furniture and actual living plants—an impossibility in chain hotels. The 426 square foot King room is luxuriously appointed with Waterworks fixtures, Aesop toiletries and sumptuous bed linens; while the Two Bedroom corner suite is a sprawling 1,116 square foot space ideal for families. Either way, you’ll feel more like you’ve settled into your new Charleston lifestyle than schlepping around for a short term stay, and you’ll like it.
You're here because
Not only does the hotel have loaner bikes and gratis La Colombe coffee and pastries from nearby Baguette Magic, but staffers hand you a welcome specialty cocktail or mocktail (inspired by the current season, natch) as soon as you arrive.
The Moment
You’re nothing less than zonked from your flight, but luckily, the Pinch’s spa awaits with a Hydrating Hydramemory Facial and Basalt lava stone massages. Bliss.
Restaurants & Bars
The Quinte - A Parisian oyster bar, serving fresh seafood and cocktails.
Location
The buzzing heart of historic Charleston, five blocks from the Aiken-Rhett House Museum, a nearly perfectly preserved 1820 townhouse with chilling enslaved persons’ quarters that have not been altered since the 1950s.