London Hotels: Eat 'Em Up

It isn't too many years ago that, if faced with the choice between a hotel restaurant and what Max Bialystock in "The Producers" calls "El Fresco's" (a hot dog cart), the wise diner might well have opted for the latter. There were always shining exceptions, but a useful rule of thumb was: Keep away from restaurants in hotels unless you want tired food served by tired waiters in tired (though usually cushy) surroundings.

Things have certainly changed: Think of Citronelle in the Latham Hotel in Georgetown or Jean Georges in New York's Trump International Hotel. Heck, all three of Alain Ducasse's first-string dining rooms are in hotels: Monte Carlo's Hotel de Paris, the Plaza Athenee in Paris and the Essex House in New York.

On a recent five-night stay in London, my wife and I found ourselves -- initially by happenstance, then as a mild obsession -- dining in hotel restaurants on four of those nights. This quickly got expensive, and few travelers will want to dine at this level of luxury every night. But the best of these restaurants are ideal places to splurge once or twice during a trip to London.

Anyone who has visited the old restaurant at the Connaught will remember its elaborate plasterwork and handsome, terrrribly English wainscoting. Happily, Menu retains these beautiful features, but they have been complemented by wall-mounted library lamps and the prettiest of window shades. What remains unaltered is the restaurant's spaciousness and comfort -- ask for one of the window tables with their comfy new sofas.

The chef, Angela Hartnett, has brought Italian verve (encoded in her DNA) and French rigor (acquired through years of working with Gordon Ramsay) to the cooking, along with imagination and an impressive palate -- flavors are consistently vivid and seasoning impeccable. Can soup be fun? It can here, where a smooth onion cream is served with lollipops of deep-fried frogs' legs that you dip in salsa verde. A cold "mosaic" of tomato and goat cheese came to the table looking like raw tuna, and even had some of its dense tenderness. Main courses included lightly smoked pork belly served with caramelized root vegetables and thyme broth; a generous bouillabaisse that was anything but classic; and a Sunday dinner special of roast tenderloin of beef (yes, with Yorkshire pudding) that surely could not have been better. Scrumptious desserts, too, also with a marked Italian influence, including a lemon panna cotta with mint gelatin. We drank wines from Italy's far north, and they made us very happy indeed.

Besides your umbrella and slicker, leave at the door of the Dorchester's Oriental Restaurant the idea that Chinese food has to be cheap. After all, why should it be, if the chef is using first-rate ingredients and coming up with interesting new ways of using them? Once you accept this, the Oriental will feed you what may be the best Chinese meal in London. The decor, again, is very Grand Hotel, but draped with the gauze of Orientalism. Chef Kenneth Poon hails from Hong Kong, a source of today's most lavish and innovative Chinese cooking, and it shows in his use of favorite Hong Kong flavors, such as dried scallops and salted egg. I had the most astonishing eel, where the boned fish (delivered live to the restaurant) was rolled, flesh-side out, into an unctuous spheroid and perfectly fried, then polished with a cinnamon-flower glaze. Best eel I've ever eaten, and I've downed yards of them over the years. Also splendid were big shrimp with a loose glutinous rice stuffing scented with garlic and Chinese rice wine. I drank a luscious gewürztraminer from New Zealand.

Less integrated into its hotel surroundings is Giorgio Locatelli's Locanda Locatelli, in -- but not of -- the Churchill InterContinental. It has its own entrance and aesthetic, far hipper than the hotel's, with a terrific buzz of conversation even late at night. We ate little patties of calf's foot, breaded and fried, with lemon-dressed salad and chopped mostarda (spiced, syrup-preserved fruit); loosely stuffed Savoy cabbage leaves with crisped lozenges of saffrony risotto; then the best grilled mackerel I've ever tasted -- so juicy, so tasty; and slightly disappointing pappardelle pasta with baby goat ragu (disappointing because the thinly rolled noodles tended to clump in the creamy sauce). An interesting dessert was seadas -- fried Sardinian cheese ravioli -- with honey and blood orange. More far-northern Italian wine -- a Tokay from Friuli.

On a less elevated (and less expensive) level, we had a post-opera supper at Brasserie Roux in the Sofitel St. James. Its high-ceilinged, modern, slightly whimsical decor is in keeping with the hotel's. The restaurant serves utterly classic French bistro food, including a fine breaded pig's foot; slightly charred-tasting confit of duck; and an elegant version of macaroni and cheese that desperately needed salt. In fact, the menu really has something for everybody, even if all that's needed is an interesting salad. This may not be a restaurant that would make me feel like renting a room in the hotel , but I certainly feel confident in recommending it for a nice, solid ultra-French meal.

There are other hotel restaurants we've enjoyed -- and sometimes adored -- on previous London vacations: Ramsay at Claridge's, Nahm (David Thompson's extraordinary Thai restaurant) in the Halkin and Nobu in the Metropolitan. They, and quite a few more we haven't tried, demonstrate that the fusty old days are numbered, and that some of the most exciting dining in London is to be enjoyed in the city's best hotels.

-- Edward Schneider

All prices are for dinner for two, with a modest wine.

• Menu at the Connaught, Carlos Place, 011-44-20-7592-1222. About $195.

• Oriental Restaurant at the Dorchester, Park Lane, 011- 44-20-7629-8888. About $190 (dim sum lunch also available).

• Locanda Locatelli at the Churchill InterContinental, 8 Seymour St. (Portman Square), 011-44-20-7935-9088. About $170.

• Brasserie Roux, Sofitel St. James, 6 Waterloo Pl., 011-44-20-7968-2900. About $120.