Heavens

Besides people staying IN the hotel or people with huge expense accounts?

I have always wondered who goes to these usually outrageously priced eateries? They are usually very fancy and formal it seems to me. I look at their menus when I stay in a four star hotel and wonder who would pay these prices?

I would much prefer to drive or take a taxi and go to a local eatery than stay in the hotel and pay outrageous prices. I can see if you have been working a convention and your real tired and want to order room service, that is one thing. But to purposely eat in a fancy hotel at such an expensive place, who does this???

Pumpy

Your first sentence (message...) answers your own question.

OO

If you build it and have good food, then maybe throw in a top notch view...they will come, locals too. I speak from experience!

rb_travelerxATyahoo

Some hotels have GREAT restaurants, some have lousey ones. I'm unlikely to eat in the hotel restaurant for more than 1 breakfast and 1 dinner. I've worked in hotels with restaurants very popular with the locals, and some that were so bad it was hard to attract vermin.

It's room service I can't understand. Too often it's below-par of the food & service in the restaurant, hot items not hot enough, cold items warm, served with a number of disposable items and portion-control/takeout type condiments and other extras. I'll take the hotels bar & restaurant over room service anytime ... (unless I'm philandering!)

jor

I think it is a cop-out to eat at the hotel restaurant in the hotel they are staying in. Going down the elevator for "fine dining" is for lazy people who don't want to find a real restaurant with real local character.

soccr

Here's a vote for lazy people who have been marathon traveling and dining and finally just want a quick salad and to go to bed! Why bother to trash people who opt to eat in the hotel restaurant, when sometimes the object of the game is NOT to find the perfect local restaurant with the most memorable cuisine, esp. if you've been eating rich for the last 3-7 days.

One other "excuse" for hotel eating -- aside from those hotel restaurants that actually ARE 4-star -- on holidays when absolutely nowhere else is open. Have had more than one such dinner on Xmas or T'giving, when for various reasons there was not going to be a home-cooked meal.

LilMsFoodie

Better hotels have learned in the past few years to have "destination" restaurants on premise or risk losing customers. Most often this is done by hiring a reknown chef to recreate one of his restaurants on site.

There are so many instances of this I can't begin to name them. I will often go to them whether a hotel guest or not. The good thing is that the hotel can often float a restaurant long enough for it to build a following. That is very difficult in todays restaurant business.

Brazilian Court: Cafe Boulud
Ritz Orlando: Norman's
JW Marriott Orlando: Primo
Dolphin: Blue Zoo (Todd English)
Mandarin in Miami: Azul (probably best restaurant in Miami)

Lots more destination restaurants that are not celebrity driven:
Oystercatchers at the Hyatt in Tampa
comes to my mind as it is a favorite of many in Tampa and for me as well.

I can't decide if your question is trollish or your don't travel much.

AAFrequentFlyer

To assume that restaurants in hotels can't be good to great, is ridiculous. There are some fantastic places in the major hotels in the major cities. Just look at Vegas. Many, many 5* restaurants in all the major hotels.
Maestro at the Ritz-Carlton in Tyson Corner, VA, or Jer-Ne in Marina del rRay, CA, could hold it's own with the best in the country. Avenues at the Peninsula in Chicago is another one. Some Hiltons and Hyatts have great restaurants. I could go on and on.

If you are talking about the average pub style restaurant in a nice hotel, then yes, it may be somewhat overpriced, but you pay for the convinience. Not everybody staying at the hotels is on vacation. After you fly all day, and you have an early meeting next morning, looking for that "special" place in a new city is not exactly high on your priority list.

Christina

I may eat at them when I'm traveling on business becaus I'm not sightseeing or touring -- I'm busy and tired, and often coping with a time change on top of that, and not out to discover local eateries or restaurants. Also, if I'm alone and can't eat until relatively late, I do not want to be gallivanting around a strange town late at night when I have to get up very early the next day. I do not have a huge expense account, many of these restaurants are no more expensive than a lot of other restaurants, and the food can be perfectly adequate if you aren't out to have a cosmic dining experience. On the other hand, I don't usually order room service as I'd rather eat in a restaurant than in my room.

I don't stay at "fancy" hotels, however. But truly fancy hotels often have very good restaurants and a lot of them are destinations for locals, also. Many hotel restaurants are not fancy, either, you have limited experience. A lot of hotels will have a variety of restaurants, some casual to the formal one.

YOu also are not considering that some people are traveling who may not get around as easily as you, are elderly or in other circumstances where they just want a decent meal easily.

GoTravel

Some of the very best restaurants in NYC are in hotels.

yk

I also agree that many hotels have great restaurants. I certainly have eaten at many hotel restaurants in the cities I've lived in, even though I wasn't staying at the hotel.

kcapuani

I stayed at a hotel in Toronto this weekend and actually ordered room service. True it was overpriced but the food was rather good. I felt like a kid sitting on the bed in my PJ's eating dinner and watching a movie (yes, I even order pay movies from hotels too).

Cassandra

Hey, room service breakfasts are one of my very favorite only-on-trips indulgences, esp. if we're on an expense account! If there's a hotel white bathrobe and a table rolled in with a rose in a vase on it, I feel like something out of a Hepburn movie. I don't even remember half the time if the food is actually good or not, although once in a while, there will be very dry croissant or petrified muffins, and then I get PO'd.

SusanCS

I saw the chef of Oystercatchers featured on the Food Channel several years ago and have wanted to eat there ever since.

Due to a family health emergency, I was in Tampa several weeks ago and stayed at the Hyatt. It's a fabulous hotel (with the most comfortable bed I've slept in anywhere), and my husband and I looked forward to a meal at Oystercatchers or Armani's.

But after a physically and mentally exhausting day, we settled into the hospitality room on the concierge floor and feasted on hors d'oeurvres and cocktails then dragged ourselves to our room and ordered room service.

Would we have loved a meal at Oystercatchers? You bet! We love good food regardless where it's found...a dive, a local hangout, or a hotel - fine or otherwise.

I think it's a bonus to book a hotel knowing that it has a really good restaurant and that's one of the reasons we stayed at the Hyatt, which wasn't particularly convenient to the location we visited.

Scarlett

I am looking forward to staying in the Tampa Bay Hyatt and trying out their restaurant AND room service

Here in Jax, everyone says we should try Bravo, in the Adams Mark Hotel. An Award winning Italian restaurant.

JackB

Being from Buffalo and having travelled from Cleveland thru Albany on business, let me tell you that a good hotel restaurant is a treasure in the dead of winter. Especially when you feel that driving another mile is just not worth it!

mikemo

Stanford Court Hot. SFO best B'Fast Lemon Souffle pancakes with fr raspberries and raspberry sauce. Enough for two.
The Mansion on Turtle Creek. DFW one would be a fool to not try/split the "lobster taco" appetizer with a glass of ... Maybe then move on to Lola, and/or.
Las Ventanas in Los Cabos
- even better when we brought the Grouper and Mahi (Dorado) we caught that same day - less than 4 hours out of the sea. We fed ourselves, some guests and many local families that night.
Pay for what you value (and value what you pay for), simple stuff.
M
(Oh, like Medical care)

jimshep

Some hotels have very good specialty restaurants. In Seattle these hotels come to mind: Fairmont Olympic, Westin, W, Alexis, Grand Hyatt, Monaco, Vintage Park, and Sorrento to name a few. Why pass a good meal by just because it?s served in a hotel. Many pricy restaurants are not in hotels. I don't get the question.

Birdie

I believe the DC has only 2 5 star restaurants - one at the Tysons Ritz.

FainaAgain

In San Francisco the locals go to hotel restaurants, too. Some offer great food, some great views, few of them offer both.

When on the road it depends on how tired (read: lazy) I am to go out of the building. I prefer the convenience of an eatery on premises for breakfast and dinner. Sometimes I use it. I don't believe that taking a taxi to and from another place worth the time and money, and there is always a choice of cheaper dishes everywhere not to make a meal "outrageous".