Hotel Drisco

The Chauffeur Is the Point

Every hotel in San Francisco has a location problem, because the city is built on hills and the good neighborhoods are not the convenient ones. Hotel Drisco solves it by driving you. A chauffeur service comes with the room, as do electric bikes, which between them turn a residential address in Pacific Heights from an inconvenience into an advantage. The house itself opened as a boarding house in 1903 and has been running as a hotel ever since, keeping its Edwardian proportions through a renovation that added a custom stained-glass window and kept the original brass. Twenty-seven rooms and sixteen suites.

Why It Works

We were taken with how much is simply included. Breakfast is European-inspired and gourmet rather than continental in the sad sense. A wine reception runs in the early evening, which at a house of this size means meeting the other guests rather than queueing at a bar. The bikes and the car are free. The result is a hotel that behaves like a private club with none of the membership, and it shows in the rankings: first in San Francisco on Tripadvisor, a place in the top 25 in the country, and a Key in the MICHELIN Guide.

Why This Location

Pacific Heights is where San Francisco keeps its best houses, and the stretch near Billionaire’s Row is as quiet as the city gets. That means no bars beneath the window and no traffic at two in the morning. Fillmore Street and the Sacramento Street shops and restaurants are the local high streets, both within a walk. The Presidio and the Palace of Fine Arts lie north, which makes a morning run or a bike ride genuinely worth doing. Downtown is a drive or a ride rather than a stroll, which is exactly what the house car is for.

Fast Facts

• Price: Luxury

• Vibe: Edwardian, residential, quietly well-run

• Rooms: 43 in total, 27 rooms and 16 suites, with king beds and heated bathroom floors

• Best For: repeat visitors to San Francisco, couples, travelers who prefer a neighborhood to a downtown block

• Our Favorite Thing About the Hotel: the chauffeur service included in the rate, which quietly cancels the hills

• Dining: gourmet European-inspired breakfast included; a nightly wine reception in the early evening; Fillmore and Sacramento Street restaurants a walk away

• Amenities: house car, electric bikes, heated bathroom floors, spas within walking distance, wine country excursions arranged with the driving handled

• Attractions: Fillmore Street, Sacramento Street, the Presidio, the Palace of Fine Arts, the Pacific Heights mansions

Breakfast, the Wine Hour and the Bikes

The three inclusions set the shape of a day here. Breakfast is served properly and is worth staying in for. The bikes are electric, which is the only sensible kind in this topography, and they open up the Presidio and the waterfront without a car. The wine reception lands in the early evening, before dinner and after whatever the day held, and it is the moment the hotel feels smallest and best. If the plan is wine country rather than the city, the house arranges the day and takes the driving off your hands.

Edwardian Bones, Brass and Stained Glass

A building that has been taking guests since 1903 carries its age in the proportions: high ceilings, deep windows, a staircase that means something. The renovation went through the exterior and the interiors without stripping that out, adding a custom stained-glass window and leaving the original brass where it was. Rooms are done in old-world register with modern comforts underneath, king beds, soft linen, heated bathroom floors for a city that is colder than visitors expect. Suites are the ones to take if you are staying more than two nights.

What to Know Before You Book

This is a residential neighborhood, so bring shoes for hills and plan to use the car or the bikes rather than walking downtown. Check-in is from three in the afternoon, check-out at noon. Forty-three rooms means it sells out, particularly at the suite end. Families are accommodated, though the atmosphere is calm and adult. San Francisco fog is a summer phenomenon rather than a winter one, which catches out more visitors than any other detail about the city.