Seasonal trends – grand hotel dining rooms

Hard on the heels of his exciting, pitch-perfect revamp of The French at the Midland Hotel in Manchester, The Good Food Guide’s number one chef, Simon Rogan, is to take over the running of the new restaurant at Claridge’s – the grandee of London’s grand hotels . In what’s shaping up as the most anticipated opening of the new year, it joins a raft of top-end hotel dining room launches, including Jason Atherton’s wow-factor Berners Tavern in The London Edition Hotel, and former Galvin at Windows head chef André Garrett putting on the style at the magnificently re-energised Cliveden house in Buckinghamshire. So are we seeing the return of the hotel dining room as a major foodie destination?

Concerns about the economy may linger but there’s no doubt that we are glimpsing tiny shoots of recovery. Perhaps what we are all hankering after now is a sprightly challenge to the pimped-up street food and its accompanying hard floors, even harder seats, communal tables and no reservations policy that have driven the UK restaurant scene for the last few years. Eating out in Britain has never been more exciting, but we do seem to be bogged down in austerity and queuing for greasy carbs. Fortunately, top-dollar hotels are fighting back with talented chefs, ever-accommodating service and bang-on-the-money decor. At Lime Wood in Hampshire, for example, Angela Hartnett and Luke Holder’s Hartnett Holder & Co offers seasonal food, comfortable seating and confirmed bookings. OK, it comes at a price, but surely occasional luxury is worth paying for? And luxury is something we have all done without for far too long