15 Top Foodie Hotels

Valaer Murray May 16, 2007

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Fifteen reasons to not leave your hotel

After a quick nap on 400-count sheets, you catch the latest news on the 42-inch plasma TV, take a hot shower in the marble "bath environment," get dressed and head downstairs for a six-course tasting menu that's getting rave reviews—from the few that can score a table. Isn't it nice to have the hottest restaurant in town only an elevator ride away? These days, that's often the case.

Hotel dining has gotten a boost in the past few years, emerging from its stuffy, conservative past to become the foremost arena for innovative cuisine. Upscale hotel groups like the Four Seasons and Ritz-Carlton have implemented the formula of award-winning in-house restaurants for years, but now it seems like every new hotel ensures its status among foodies with a celebrity chef-helmed restaurant. Or three.

Food writer Steven A. Shaw, author of Turning the Tables, believes this trend actually recalls the hotel industry's earlier years. "Hotels and restaurants have gone hand in hand since the days of Escoffier and the Ritz. In the 1970s and 1980s, hotel dining took a nosedive and became largely generic, while the interesting new chefs and restaurants operated mostly outside the hotel arena."

See our slideshow of 15 Top Foodie Hotels.

Still, many of the country's most distinguished restaurants, like The French Laundry, are independent spaces, but the days of notable new standalones may be numbered. The Vice President of The James Beard Foundation, Mitchell Davis, laments the "rising operating costs of running a restaurant that sadly make freestanding, independent, fine-dining restaurants less and less viable as business enterprises." He points out that hotels can defray some of operating costs, and therefore can open bigger and better venues.

Although stalwart epicurean destinations like Jean-Georges at the Trump Tower have been around for ages, many of the most exciting new restaurants are opening within hotels. For instance, the 2006 opening of New York's London Hotel received a swarm of buzz from its restaurant, the first of Gordon Ramsay's empire to cross the pond. Also, Alain Ducasse's much-anticipated restaurant Adour, opening this summer, may breathe new life into the venerable St. Regis New York, which kick-started the movement in the '90s with its celebrated restaurant, Lespinasse.

Albert Herrera, Vice President of Hotels and Resorts for Virtuoso, a collection of upscale travel agencies, said that many hotels are recruiting big-name chefs in order to ensure that guests are spending their time and money on the premises. "Fine hotel dining is a must to compete in the high-end arena," he said Mitchell Davis agrees that a hard-to-get table benefits the whole establishment: "They can attract visitors to the hotel, they help bring locals into the property, they command higher prices for banquets and special events, and they make the hotel a hot commodity in the style-making arena."

It's no coincidence that many of the top New York hotels house highly acclaimed restaurants. The city is, after all, a major travel destination and the nation's foremost food capital. But another legendary foodie scene, San Francisco, with eateries like Ame at the St. Regis, is also making its mark. Then cities like Washington, D.C. and Miami, with plenty of hungry tourists, are also becoming trendsetters in hotel dining. For example, the Setai and the Mandarin Oriental, both in Miami, receive high marks for their restaurants. Meanwhile, Citronelle at The Latham in D.C. just won two James Beard awards. MORE...

See our slideshow of 15 Top Foodie Hotels.

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