FSR October 2022

HOTEL RES TAURANT S

HOTEL RESTAURANTS haven’t always enjoyed the best reputation. Although chefs have been elevating those on-site concepts for more than a decade, a prevailing bias still lingers. And it's no surprise why. For a long time, hotel restaurants were static and pricey at best and perfunctory after thoughts at worst, leading savvy hotel guests to venture off-site for their meals.

“ e foodie people, they go out and find freestanding restau rants. ey think hotel [restaurants] are old-school, where it’s a three-meal-a-day café where you just get a club sand wich and a burger,” says Ewart Wardhaugh, executive chef at the Epicurean Hotel Atlanta, which opened last fall as part of Marriott’s Autograph Collection. “But now, the food and beverage within a lot of hotels is just as good as a freestand ing restaurant, if not better because they have better support.” e Epicurean Hotel, which also includes a sister property in Tampa, Florida, has F&B baked into its DNA. In addition to its name and branding (“Atlanta’s Food Focused Hotel”),

the hotel includes two chef-led restaurants, a craft bar, and a culinary theater. It even bills its rooms as “culinary inspired" since it incorporates materials like butcher’s block, stone, and brushed metal into the design. For Wardhaugh, who’s spent the vast majority of his 30-year career in hotels, details like this can help perma nently shift consumers’ opinions of on-site restaurants for the better. “Before, it was just an avenue to feed the guests and keep them on property, whereas now it’s about dining and the experience,” he says.

RAND TOWER TAPPED CHEF DANIEL DEL PRADO FOR ITS TRIO OF ON-SITE RESTAURANTS.

WINGHOCOURTESYOF RAND TOWER HOTEL ANDDDP RESTAURANT GROUP (2)

28

FSRMAGAZINE .COM

OCTOBER 2022