An impressive new contender among Boston's old-guard luxury hotels, the 148-room Mandarin Oriental in Back Bay tries to doing everything bigger and better. Few expenses were spared in constructing the $300 million, limestone-and-marble-façade building, which opened in October 2008. The sleek entryway gives way to a dark and cozy living-room-style lobby. The standard rooms, some of the largest and most luxurious in Boston, are equipped with sink-into beds with Frette sheets and Ploh pillows, separate deep tubs and rainfall showers, and 42-inch flat-screen TVs with some 20 free movie channels. The city's most spectacular spa, a 16,000-square-foot extravaganza, tops it all off.

In Boston, only the Four Seasons can compete with the level of service delivered here. The all-out attack includes nightly turndown, complimentary shoeshines and newspapers, a welcome tea delivered up to the room right after check-in, and a Mercedes that shuttles guests anywhere within a two-mile radius of the hotel.

If one has to nitpick, the views overlooking restaurant-lined Boylston Street, though charming, don't quite match those you get at the Fairmont, the Four Seasons, or the Taj, where many rooms face Copley Square or the Public Garden. The Mandarin also lacks a pool, which is a feature you get at the Four Seasons.

That said, the sleek, contemporary design of its ultra-luxurious rooms gives the Mandarin a unique profile among the finest hotels in Boston.