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CALIFORNIA SAN FRANCISCO THE FAIRMONT HOTEL
San Francisco offers many wonderful panoramas. Here was one of the best: the Bay, Alcatraz, the distant hills, church spires, the patchwork quilt of quaint rooftops – all bathed in gentle Californian sunshine (see picture). I always try to dress well for dinner, but I had already had a look at the Laurel Court and I knew that its grandeur demanded high sartorial standards. I was glad I had made the effort, as I was led by Margarita Villaquiran (the charming Assistant Restaurant Manager) across the red and gold carpet, through the columns and under the ceiling domes, to my table. As the trio in the distant corner played – at my request – ‘Putting on The Ritz’, a friendly lady from Montana, dining at a nearby table, came over to say hello. This kind gesture, together with the proper white tablecloths and good Spiegelau glassware, put me into a relaxed and affable mood.
And ‘grand’ is the word which best suits The Fairmont. In its architecture, its location and its atmosphere, it is truly a grand hotel of the traditional sort. It is the kind of hotel which plays host to history. Here statesmen sign important documents and crooners sing words which melt our hearts.
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ADDRESSES THE FAIRMONT SAN FRANCISCO
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© Francis Bown 2003
Great hotels often see history being made. At the end of the Second World War, a conference was held in San Francisco to invent an organisation which would promote world peace. It was in the Garden Room of the Fairmont Hotel that the Charter of the United Nations was signed. That is why the national flags of the original signatories still fly above the porte-cochère at the main entrance. And – a fact even more exciting for this visitor – it was here, in the hotel’s Venetian Room, that Tony Bennett first sang the song, I left my heart in San Francisco. The Fairmont has seen some wonders.
If, like me, you have loved those old Hollywood films in which the drama begins in a hotel lobby of vast proportions, you will have a sense of déjà vu when you first enter The Fairmont. For here is that space with which you are familiar on celluloid: a huge hall of marble columns, gilt carving and potted palms, abuzz with the comings and goings of important people. One has the sense that the place has been busy for a hundred years, and one is right. The hotel had only just been built, when it was burnt down in the fire which followed the 1906 earthquake. Twelve months later it was open again, with its splendour restored. At the opening banquet, 13,000 oysters were consumed, and thereafter the likes of President Theodore Roosevelt and Rudolph Valentino crowded its sumptuous apartments on top of Nob Hill. Now it was my turn.
I went up to the 12th floor of the Tower Building, erected in the 1960s at the rear of the original structure. Number 1203 was styled a ‘Signature Room’ (and was therefore $369 to $495 a night for two, according to season, breakfast extra). A modest hallway contained the wardrobes, the safe and those really useful features of American hotel rooms, the iron and the ironing board. Tones of beige decorated the reasonably sized bedroom, in which pieces of mahogany furniture in the style of the 18th century added a touch of elegance. In the drawer of the writing desk were useful items, like paper clips and a roll of sticky tape. The wireless was already tuned to the local Classical music station (102•1 FM), so the strains of Dukas’ ‘Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ were the first sounds I heard as I surveyed what really pleased me about this apartment – the view.
I could happily have looked through the plate glass until night fell. But the pre-prandial ablutions called, so I toddled off to the honeyed marble of the bathroom for a shave and a soak. I knew that dining at The Fairmont was done either in the Tonga Room (for Asian cuisine) or at the Laurel Court, off the lobby (for Californian fare). I, of course, had chosen the latter, and I wanted to look my best.
Chef Jason Ramirez sent from his kitchen four enjoyable courses (for which you should expect to pay around $65). First came a simple, well-balanced salad of pear, blue cheese and walnuts. Then it was an intelligent combination of poached lobster and seared foie gras. My meat was a flavoursome piece of beef fillet, and my pudding was an iced orange soufflé. (Foie gras, sadly, is going to be banned in California in the next few years. I take it this is on animal welfare grounds. I hope those responsible for this decision will take the time to read the recent study of the nervous systems of ducks and geese by Dr Daniel Guémené, of the European Food Safety Authority, which shows that these animals do not feel either stress or suffering when they are being force-fed.)
Although there are one or two Old World offerings to tempt (like 1995 Lafite at $1,036), the wine list at the Laurel Court is largely Californian. Prices start at $26 for a Central Coast riesling and go up to $2,000 for the 2002 Screaming Eagle cabernet. In between, there are lots of good bottles – for example, 2001 Calera Viognier, Mount Harlan, at $78, 2002 Hawkes Merlot, Alexander Valley, Sonoma, at $347 and 2000 Opus One at $344. I quaffed a super Napa Valley chardonnay, a mixture of butter and vanilla almost as grand as The Fairmont itself (Kistler, Les Noisetiers - $102).