Great Hotel Restaurants
For the 13th year HOTELS recognizes 10 hotel restaurants that best fulfill the definition of greatness.
By Mary Scoviak, Features Editor -- HOTELS Magazine, 8/1/2002
HOTELS’ 13th annual list of Great Hotel Restaurant honorees reflects the culinary cross-currents that have deconstructed the concept of fine dining. “Great” applies as much to the modern elegance of Hoku’s at the Kahala Mandarin Oriental in Honolulu or the drama of Bellagio’s Picasso as to the late 19th-century opulence of the Hotel Sacher Wien’s Rote Bar. Now, a hotel restaurant has to be “different” to be the best. Perhaps it always did.
This year’s honorees signal some rapprochement between the fiercely contemporary and classically traditional culinary camps. Minimalism still works, as does haute cuisine. But, generally, these award-winning menus showcase signature dishes with mass appeal alongside cutting-edge combinations of ingredients and flavors. Star chefs attracted by the better infrastructure, better equipment and managerial support unique to hotels have repositioned hotel restaurants as market-pleasing trendsetters—even when judged against free-standing competition.
Consistency, quality and overall excellence are still the measures of a great hotel restaurant. These factors are the basis on which the Selection Committee votes. Working from a list of more than 150 nominees worldwide, the Selection Committee chooses 10 restaurants that have proven they can deliver seamless quality, creativity and high service standards over time. Past winners are not eligible nor are the small 10- or 20-room properties that rank among the finest dining venues in the world. Unlike the UK’s Gidleigh Park and Michel Roux’s Waterside Inn, the United States’ Inn at Little Washington and France’s Chateau des Bagnols, among others, the Great Hotel Restaurant honorees represent HOTELS’ editorial niche of larger properties worldwide. Villeroy & Boch creates the beautiful porcelain trophy that is a mark of achievement for each winner.
Bai Yun, Banyan Tree, Bangkok
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Guest preferences and international influences shape the menu of the seven-year-old Bai Yun. “We always take guests’ comments into account when creating a new dish or menu,” says Guenael Le Berre, executive chef in charge of the Banyan Tree’s food and beverage division.
Guests’ increased concern for wellness directed Chef Thanarak Chuto toward more menu offerings with tofu, chicken and duck breasts, fungi and mushrooms. Low-fat dishes such as braised superior shark’s fin with Yunan ham in brown sauce, served with fungi clear soup, steamed scallop noodle rolls in soya sauce and sautéed giant crab claw with a Hong Kong-influenced XO sauce are top sellers on the Cantonese menu.
Thanarak stresses the importance of retaining a core of “familiar gourmet Cantonese dishes our guests enjoy.” But, the 20-year veteran sees room to evolve “our take on nouvelle Chinese cuisine.”
Drawing on inspiration from global travels, Thanarak ventures onto the cutting edge with his shark’s fin soup in a paper bowl and a shark-shaped soup and dessert. Entrées average US$24.
A student of cooking techniques from Hong Kong to Beijing, Thanarak trains his brigade to “understand” each dish from its origins. “Chef Thanarak is always on the lookout for important new ideas. Many of his innovations here have inspired a flurry of imitators,” adds Le Berre.
Picasso, Bellagio, Las Vegas
Under Las Vegas’ neon lights is the James Beard Foundation awarding-winning Picasso. Executive Chef Julian Serrano proves that “serious” food can work in any setting, as long as it is original and consistent. “I have the flexibility to do almost anything with the menu. However, I need to respect the quality of the product as well as what the guest is spending. I will not sacrifice quality for anything,” Serrano says.
Spanish by birth, Serrano has acquired an affinity for French cuisine apparent in his lamb chops with confit, rosemary potatoes and mint oil as well as venison with sautéed medallions of fallow deer, caramelized green apples and a Zinfandel sauce. Recent menu changes for the 136-seat restaurant focus on “lightening” the menu with more salads and “cooler” dishes. Serrano changes the menu daily but includes the signature items “that set us apart.” “I read about food trends, but I feel no need to change a menu item because everyone else is doing it,” he says.
The move from an a la carte menu to a pre-fixe or menu degustation has been extremely successful, Serrano says. It also looks good on the bottom line, with pre-fixe menus averaging US$79.50 and the menu degustation priced at US$89.50.
T'Ang Court, Great Eagle Hotel, Hong Kong
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Creative combinations of Western ingredients with Chinese culinary art lend an unexpected opulence to the dishes of T’ang Court. Whether as simple as “baked salty chicken” or as original as pan-fried salmon accompanied by salmon taro puffs, the dishes’ rich, pure flavors are the perfect focus amidst the lavish Tang Dynasty decor.
A self-admitted aficionado of “highly complicated cooking styles,” Executive Chef Kwong Wai Keung acknowledges that Cantonese cooking has less room for innovation than other methods. “But, all cuisines need to evolve,” he adds. His answer is a shift toward health-oriented refinements on traditional Cantonese cuisine and the introduction of more seafood and a wider range of vegetables.
Like a growing cadre of his colleagues, Keung is a strong proponent of signature dishes. “They are very important. They draw people to the restaurant because other people have talked about them or an article mentions them. Signature dishes have a direct impact in making a restaurant’s name known,” he says. Neither does he see the hotel setting as confining. “You have the food and beverage infrastructure behind you, so you do not have to compromise on manpower excellence, food ordering, or the quality of the wine list in order to compete. Hotel restaurants can afford the latest cooking utensils and kitchen equipment to speed up and control the work,” Keung adds.
El Restaurante, Four Seasons, Mexico City
There is nothing naive or minimalist about El Restaurant. Chef Regis Lacombe, a passionate ambassador of French haute cuisine, scrapped a menu that specialized in international dishes from the old and new worlds. In its place is a sampling of complex yet modern regional French cuisines that attracts 1,200 to 1,500 covers monthly for lunch and 1,500 to 1,800 at dinner.
El Restaurante’s stimulating food is the perfect juxtaposition for its elegant, understated decor. “We wanted to offer something intriguing to the palate—bold, imaginative specialties that are artfully presented,” Lacombe says. The menu freely mixes a duck consommé with foie gras, a lobster tail carpaccio with “fine herbs” and lentils, Maine lobster with pappardelle and morel mushrooms and a casserole of snails and mushrooms in a wine sauce. Unique and seasonal ingredients keep menu concepts fresh for this 84-seat, three-meal restaurant.
Variety of products and flavors has proved an important ingredient in El Restaurante’s success, as has listening to customers. “You have to listen to your customers, define what they want and prepare the dishes that please them,” Lacombe says. Better product knowledge and more intensive training for all members of the 40-45-member brigade have made El Restaurante the only Mobile Five Diamond award winner in Mexico’s capital.
Shang Palace, Kowloon Shangri-La, Hong Kong
The recipes of refined Chinese feasts have been handed down over centuries and still are used in Shang Palace, especially for important occasions and business entertaining. But that does not deter Executive Chinese Chef Ip Chi Cheung from exploring Western ingredients as well as influences originating all over Asia.
A frequent visitor to the markets, Ip and his 28-member brigade serve classic Cantonese specialties and regional classics such as Peking duck alongside contemporary creations such as a lobster dumpling served in supreme soup presented in a special Japanese paper that will not burn when warmed over sterno and rolls of abalone combined with asparagus and minced shrimp shaped like an ancient jade hairpin. Ip updated Lantern Festival tradition with innovative bird’s nest mini-mooncakes with egg yolk and red bean paste. Aroma, color, taste, texture and contrast give Ip’s dishes a more distinctive flavor than conventional Cantonese cuisine.
Known as an innovator, Ip often finds himself filling orders by regulars who leave the menu choices up to him. “Sometimes guests may want to try some home-cooked-style dishes. Others would like to have a dish that may have been on the menu in the previous month or something that replicates a dish they have had elsewhere. As long as we have the ingredients in the kitchen, we try to satisfy their demands,” Ip says. His guest-first policy and respected cuisine generate 100,000 covers annually for the 21-year-old fine-dining room.
Hoku's, Kahala Mandarin Oriental, Honolulu
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Hoku’s signature dish, a tower of seafood on ice served with seven dipping sauces, is not even on the printed menu. It does not need to be. It is the essence of Executive Chef Wayne Hirabayashi’s straightforward approach to food and his genius for finding flavors that enhance rather than overwhelm fish and seafood.
Dishes like crisped, freshly caught whole island fish with sweet and sour, soy ginger and black bean sauce are the reasons this vibrant restaurant averages 190 to 210 covers per night. Casually elegant, Hoku’s uses its culinary flexibility to create dishes as different as wok-fried vegetables and creamed spinach, red wine shallots and garlic mashed potatoes. Though the menu’s blend of local products and Asian cooking techniques sounds trendy enough, Hirabayashi looks to food, not fashion, for his inspiration. “Hoku’s menu is more about the chef’s current cuisine passion than trends. Otherwise it becomes a game of trying to copy the current fad. That is very tiring,” Hirabayashi says.
While the menu changes quarterly, Hirabayashi makes room for daily innovation with “Hoku’s Experience Menu.” “Our former tasting menu served demi-sized menu items in a coursed-out manner. It was popular, but it required too many decisions on the part of the guest. The new experience menu combines menu and non-menu items. Guests can order it with wine pairings.
La Commanderie, Le Chateau du Domaine St. Martin, Vence, France
Philippe Guerin came to La Commanderie in February 2001 with his own ideas about cuisine, including some suggestions for enhancing the signature whole Mediterranean sea bass in culin with dried fennel. “Our customers wanted to see some changes coming from a young chef who trained with some of the best French chefs. He succeeds a chef who was here for 25 years. Chef Guerin is not a star yet, but the restaurant is gaining even more popularity as people come to find out how he is improving the cuisine,” says Philippe Perd, director general.
Pan-fried scampi with bacon, a reduction of balsamic vinegar and grapes and sole on a rosemary skewer, served with pan-fried risotto and meat juice augmented with walnut oil reflect Guerin’s respect for the terroir—the soil. Dishes follow the seasons, changing in February when the hotel opens for the season, again in June and finally in September.
Quality ingredients, even at what Perd terms are sometimes “very high prices,” ensure that meals will meet the expectations of guests who stay on this historic chateau as well as those who make the pilgrimage from other parts of the Riviera. Menu prices begin at US$40 for lunch, US$55 for dinner with a three-course meal available for US$69 and a tasting menu priced at US$89.
Andrew Fairlie At Gleneagles, Gleneagles Hotel, Auchterarder, Perthshire, Scotland
“We’re not re-inventing anything,” says a matter-of-fact Andrew Fairlie, owner/operator of his 45-cover namesake restaurant at the world-famous Gleneagles. The decision-makers who awarded the restaurant its first Michelin star just eight months after its May 2001 opening would disagree. Fairlie’s mix of classic French technique and modern style is creating a new genre of intensely flavorful but subtle food that has an international clientele trekking to the Perthshire countryside for more than world-class golf.
The youngest Roux scholar in history, when he was just 20, Fairlie relies as much on technique as flavoring to achieve his award-winning cuisine. His signature smoked lobster is delicately infused from lobster shells slow-smoked over oak chips taken from malt whiskey barrels. Twice-cooked duck requires nearly two days of preparation before being served with its tomato/soy-based sauce and deep-fried duck legs that enliven a watercress salad. Desserts range from an indulgent hot chocolate pudding to a summery fruit soup with 50-year-old balsamic vinegar.
Conspicuous by their absence are beef and chicken dishes. “If we did 45 covers on a Friday or Saturday night, 25 would be beef. We made a conscious decision not to include chicken because everyone has it. It is boring. We wanted to force people to try something new,” says Fairlie, who was born just 14 miles (22 km) from Gleneagles. Pork remains the best seller, but the restaurant does a brisk business in lamb, duck, veal kidneys and sweetbreads. Average check stands at US$80-US$110.
“Since we are open only for dinner, we have the luxury of cooking everything fresh that day. One reason for our success is that guys (in the eight-member brigade) believe they have to like what they cook,” Fairlie says.
Rote Bar, Hotel Sacher, Vienna
Chefs Christian Wieseneder and Hans-Peter Fink have re-established the Rote Bar’s reputation for culinary innovation. Their new menu balances a heart-felt respect for the “tafelspitz” and Sacher-Torte with whipped cream that made the Sacher name famous along with an enthusiasm for lighter, regional Austrian dishes that emphasize fresh tastes and creative presentation. This blend of classicism and experimentation has built annual turnover to 25,000 covers for the 46-seat dining room.
“The goal is to satisfy guests’ tastes,” Wieseneder says. “We can try to educate the guests in different styles and to give them the experience they expect. But, if the trend is moving strongly toward lighter, lower fat cuisine, we should not ignore that and continue cooking only heavy dressings and sauces.” With the exception of signature entrées such as tafelspitz with apple horseradish sauce, chive sauce and potatoes, each day’s menu begins with the best products available in the local market or from regional producers. “A daily menu gives you the freedom to take advantage of what looks best that day. The point is to bring out the natural flavor of the food, which means the raw product has to be at its peak freshness,” Fink adds.
Though the menu has a decidedly modern accent, both the decor and service style reflect the 116-year-old hotel setting. While the chefs say casual, excellent service might be acceptable in a freestanding restaurant, the Sacher’s guests expect traditional, formal service in the context of a legendary hotel.
La Barbacane, Hôtel de la Cité, Carcasonne, France
Thirty-two-year-old Executive Chef Franck Putelat’s signature touch with French regional cuisine earned La Barbacane a Michelin Star in the 2002 Red Guide. What Michelin inspectors and guests alike appreciate is the almost sensual appeal of Putelat’s guinea fowl with vanilla; turbot with poppy seeds; a traditional cassoulet updated with lobster and, a customer favorite, an olive oil sorbet.
“If there are secrets to good cuisine, they are these: Listen to guests’ demands; start from scratch every day, and go and see what others do. You also have to respect the staff, the guest and most importantly, the product, if you want a good restaurant,” Putelat says.
Head of a 14-member brigade, Putelat sees the “spectacular location” as an advantage in establishing an identity. Menus change seasonally, focusing on local products such as fresh-caught fish guests may not experience in other parts of France. The essentially traditional French gastronomic concept marries Putelat’s inventive style with the medieval setting of this Orient-Express hotel. Dinners in the 70-seat restaurant average US$73.50.
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