Celebrity chefs spice up hotel restaurants

Chains want to kick dining up a notch

By Michael S. Rosenwald • The Washington Post • September 1, 2008
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Buzz up!

WASHINGTON -- Kobalt, the restaurant at the Ritz-Carlton on 22nd Street, certainly had character.
The carpet matched the upholstery on the chairs. The drapes were so heavy that nobody could see in or out. The walls: wood with silk panels.
Of the food, in 2001 The Washington Post's food critic wrote, "Sometimes I wonder if the chef is tasting his creations."
"I thought it was absolutely atrocious," said Eric Ripert, the famed chef and occasional television star behind the four-star Le Bernardin in New York City. "It was sad. It was ridiculously formal. I hated it."
Ripert is dismissive about the restaurant in the same way that new homeowners often speak about the previous owners' tastes. He moved in to the old location, opening Westend Bistro late last year as part of a spate of deals that lodging chains are making with celebrity chefs to repair the damage done by upholstery and poor food and to beef up the bottom line by drawing not just more overnight guests but city residents, too.
At Westend Bistro, the floors are hardwood. The tables are bare. The colors are deep shades of orange and red. The food is a cross between French and American cuisine. And reservations are hard to come by. It seems the moves by Ritz-Carlton, a Marriott International brand, are paying dividends. Most of the diners are not hotel guests. Revenue is up 50 percent, and profit is up 10 percent.
"This improves the overall profitability of the hotel," said Ken Rehmann, Ritz-Carlton's executive vice president of operations. "We are now appealing to a wider network of customers and going head-to-head with stand-alone restaurants. We see this as a smart business move."
Destination dining
Two decades ago, hotel restaurants served up great meals by some of the best local chefs, but the industry lost its way. The carpet from the lobby tended to roll straight into the restaurant. The atmosphere was so hushed you could hear a hotel bill drop. Even guests went somewhere else for dinner.
But big hotel chains have long tried to emulate developments in popular culture, and recently they have turned their attention to the celebrity chef culture that has invaded American cities, making near rock stars out of Ripert and Wolfgang Puck and Tom Colicchio, the head judge on the popular TV show "Top Chef."
"They are trying to go back to the days when hotels were destination dining," said Michael Costa, an editor at Hotel F&B magazine. "One of the hardest things to do in the restaurant business is get someone to walk through the door. Having a celebrity chef is a way to get them there."
In most of the recent hotel deals, the celebrity chefs license their names for hefty fees, design the menu and the concept, oversee operations with regular visits and install proteges as the everyday operators.
The redoubled efforts to perk up hotel restaurants with star chefs come as lodging chains are looking for creative ways to squeeze out more revenue as fewer business and leisure travelers hit the road.
Ripert also opened a Ritz-Carlton restaurant in Philadelphia. D.C. celeb chef Jose Andres is launching a restaurant concept for a Los Angeles hotel owned by entrepreneur Sam Nazarian and managed by Starwood Hotels and Resorts. Michel Richard, the owner of Citronelle, at the Latham Hotel in Georgetown, licensed his name to a California hotel and will oversee culinary operations.
Perhaps the biggest celebrity chef deal is Starwood's with Jean-Georges Vongerichten, the maestro behind Jean Georges, one of New York's top restaurants. Vongerichten is opening several dozen restaurants at Starwood properties, including the boutique W. (Las Vegas is a planet unto itself with restaurants by Puck, Colicchio, Bobby Flay, Emeril Lagasse, Mario Batali, Thomas Keller and Alain Ducasse.)
Home in the suburbs
Some of the new star chef-driven restaurants are popping up in unlikely places: suburban hotels. Chefs Mark Gaier and Clark Frasier have opened Summer Winter, which has its own greenhouse, at the Marriott in Burlington, Mass., 20 miles north of Boston. It is their first deal with a major hotel chain. "We are finding that 85 to 90 percent of our customers are coming from the surrounding areas, which is a really wonderful thing," Frasier said.
For the hotels, the restaurants also provide a halo effect in drawing attention to the hotel that could drive more banquet, wedding and bar mitzvah business. Guests also want to stay in a place that they perceive as being a hip outpost in a city they have perhaps never visited.