Recess Hotel & Club Savannah opened in mid-September, bringing 221 guest rooms and several new food and beverage venues to the city’s Historic District.
The building was reimagined by Left Lane, a New York City-based real estate development and hospitality firm. Recess is its second property in Savannah after Hotel Bardo, which opened in 2024.
The company is known for restoring historic properties. In this case, it took over the 114-year-old Beaux Arts-style Manger Building, which was first built as the Hotel Savannah in 1912. Left Lane teamed up with designer Atelier Pond, and now the storied grounds are once again a central hub to stay and play.
The first floor is home to the 10-seat lobby bar and its adjoining living room lounge, with woven chandeliers, tiled columns, and lush greenery. The lobby also houses the Servery, a Japanese automat-inspired takeout window that’s open for breakfast and lunch and serves fresh juices, smoothies, pastries, sandwiches, and salads.
Le Flâneur is the principle restaurant, serving French food through a local lens. | Andrew Frazier
Recess’s flagship restaurant is Le Flâneur, a French brasserie led by executive chef Zach Chancey. It moves from house-made pastries, an avocado tartine, and classic crêpes in the morning to lunch options such as Niçoise salad and moules frites. A few standout dinner items are the leeks vinaigrette, steak frites with au poivre sauce, seabass Meunière, and the cheeseburger a l’Americain topped with pickles, onions, and secret sauce.
Twelve floors up is Kilter Rooftop Bar, which features Savannah’s tallest rooftop pool. The urban garden environment is packed with vibrant greenery and patterned tiles and transitions from daytime poolside lounging to higher-energy evenings. Asian-inspired small plates like hamachi crudo, gochujang wings, sushi rolls, and wagyu skewers complement the menu of original cocktails. For example, the Confluence is a classic gin-laced Southside that adds shiso to the mix, and the Pensacola is a play on a Hurricane, but made with guanábana, tequila, and sotol.
Dishes at Le Flâneur include hanger steak with pommes purées. | Kathryn Ann Waller
“Recess is inspired by the creative undercurrent of Savannah, so it was important to us that its restaurants equally reflect this energy,” said Vanessa Tilley, vice president of brand and marketing at Left Lane. She described Le Flâneur as a social gathering space that encourages all-day lingering, and noted that Kilter was built to feel like an extension of the city, letting visitors hang out above the tree line in famously horizontal Savannah.
Recess purposely skips traditional room service to encourage guests to get out of their room, experience the food and beverage outlets, and to embrace the hotel’s clubhouse-like feel.
Left Lane is currently building a portfolio of properties across the country, bringing Recess to Phoenix and Hotel Bardo to Pittsburgh; Providence, Rhode Island; and Bozeman, Montana. Their hotels share common DNA, infusing lots of local identity into historically significant buildings, like the 1930s Art Deco-style Gulf Tower in Pittsburgh and the mid-century Punchcard Building in Phoenix.
“We’re excited to bring Le Flâneur to a number of these properties, as well as wholly new dining concepts,” Tilley said.
