Tell anyone you’re going to Boston and they’ll inevitably warn you about the city’s two harshest, most reliable elements: sports fans and winter. Although there is no reprieve from the former—they exist year-round, to varying degrees of intensity—you can now escape the chill by wearing Uggs like Tom Brady. Just kidding! (Nobody should ever wear Uggs in public.) Instead, throw on some respectable footwear and head to Boston’s Seaport District to drown your seasonal sorrows in a neon-lit igloo on the rooftop of The Envoy Hotel.
That’s right: an igloo. Many igloos, to be sort of exact. For the second winter in a row, the hotel has installed six giant, clear plastic domes across Lookout, Envoy’s rooftop bar—not to be confused with Outlook, the hotel’s main dining room, where “food is a forethought, handcrafted and highly creative, and whisked from kitchens with a recipe to delight.”
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For a beverage minimum of $500 per hour, you and your closest friends can clink specialty cocktails like “Snuggle Juice” (Stolen Rum with Amaro Nonino, cider and caramel—served hot!) while taking in views of the skyline and harbor below.
Unless, of course, it snows—because then your igloo will be blanketed by white and therefore ideal for things that require complete and total privacy, like a romantic evening for two or plotting the next way you’ll cheat win big at football. Each igloo seats eight to 10 people, which is almost big enough to comfortably accommodate everyone in Boston who didn’t name their dog Brady.
Lookout is on the penthouse level of the hotel, a property with 136 guest rooms and suites ranging from standard/affordable to $10,000 per night. The bar doesn’t serve food, but if you’re still hungry after slurping up the “Fish Bowl” (a $105 drink for four, featuring an appropriately sloppy mix of Bacardi Gold Rum, brandy, peach liqueur, iced tea, lemon and bitters), you can enjoy the all-day dining at Outlook.
Boston’s Seaport District is a lot like Dumbo in Brooklyn and a little like New York’s Seaport District. In record speed, the neighborhood has gone from basically not existing to transforming into a hotly desirable destination where cool moms and young professionals can eat, drink, shop and live. What five years ago were abandoned factories are now 3,000-square-foot open-floor-plan lofts flush with perks like pet spas, exposed brick and floor-to-ceiling windows that look down to sidewalks wide enough for you to be able to open a golf umbrella without sacrificing life or limb (though, as with any city, you’ll still definitely ignite deep offense if you carry it in NOT RAIN).
Of course, the district’s historic cobblestone streets are more easily navigated in oven mitts for your feet rather than a chic stiletto. Also, it’s Boston, and nobody here cares about clothes, so wear whatever you want. The Envoy igloos will be up through the end of the winter; reservations are recommended.
