Content area
Full Text
Think of a hotel dining room and an image of 50s starchiness prevails: crisp linen and frilly butter curls; carveries and set price lunches not quite constructed to make your mouth water. The other diners are half-hearted residents who have come here less from free will and more from an inability to map-read their way to anywhere better.
Of course, the grand London hotels have always challenged that stereotype. But it was in the early 90s, when Nico Ladenis took on the kitchen at Grosvenor House and Marco Pierre White stormed the Hyde Park Hotel, that the battle of the hotel dining rooms began in earnest. The most fashionable have tried to make their restaurant tables as sought after as an 8pm reservation at the Ivy, and, in the case of Nobu at the Metropolitan on Park Lane, more than succeeded. The traditionals have imported top talent - huge names, massive egos - to lure the punters. Gordon Ramsay moved into the hot seat at Claridges last month.
So why, one wonders, has the grandly titled Renaissance London Chancery Court Hotel in High Holborn taken a gamble on Jun Tanaka? Newly installed at its 120-seat restaurant, QC, Tanaka, who was 30 last Sunday, has never had the TV shows, widely reported court cases, or problems with anger management that we might expect from an incumbent in a kitchen like this.
The hotel's food and beverage director, Simon Traynor, is an ex- executive...