Windsor Court Grill Room

This irestaurant was an American idea of what top French food should be like, at least if you have never actually eaten in a top French restaurant. The room was formal in the extreme, dark wood and absurdly subdued lighting-  I nearly asked for a torch when the menu arrived. Tian of crab was executed well enough (14/20), as was a somewhat lifeless hare stew (14/20) but the passion fruit soufflé was a disgraceful cardboard affair; the sort of thing a chef does on their first day at catering college and learns to laugh about it (10/20). 

Service was surprisingly ordinary, with difficulty getting attention, and an unnecessary snootiness that again is quite untypical of genuinely top restaurants. It was as if someone had seen a few cartoons of a French restaurant and had a go at copying from the sketch. The wine list looked good, but the first three (read it and weep, that’s right, three) wines I selected were “off”.  Eventually trial and error found something that remained in the cellar.  Even the snooty sommelier looked marginally embarrassed as he emerged yet again from the bowels of the hotel empty handed.  Deeply expensive and disappointing.