AMARANTO RESTAURANT
THE FOUR SEASONS HOTEL
LONDON
http://www.fourseasons.com/london/dining/
Some doors never stop opening, and others closing, unlike real life, where the doors mostly feel shut.
The grand bronze and glass doors of the Four Seasons Hotel seem to be permanently revolving open for all their privileged well-heeled guests that had for years graced the sweeping portico.
Hotel entrances are important, like noses on faces, and the original architect in charge of the concept of such a structure seemed to have got the proportions just right unlike her sibling rival hotel opposite the Intercontinental Hotel who reminded me of a struggling sister.
Both buildings could have looked like1970’s office blocks at the end of classical Park Lane, but the architects successfully managed to incorporate two 5 star hotels naturally.
Smart, young, fit, smiling doorman in thick brown wool coats noticed every person’s arrival graciously acknowledged them, which somehow alleviated my guilt, as it was important not to have resentful staff hating the guests.
The original lobby had been predominantly mahogany, high ceilings; mock regency, pale blues in a large generous French palatial style both elegant and a bit intimidating. People want to be impressed, or they would stay at home.
Unusually in the 1990’s that lobby was a hang out area in itself well before the middle eastern clients made lobby’s places to sit for hours, for no particular reason, as lobbies did not serve drinks, and had no waiters.
They were places for old ladies to be collected, nannies with small children to wait for the chauffeur, and guests, whose limo was on the way for an event.
The Four Season’s Hotel lobby was the place in London where a crowd just sat and talked or waited and some very interesting characters paused and stopped so rivaling the upstairs bar.
Now the lobby looks smaller, a dark rich chic red burgundy with plenty of dark woods, very modern like a private club but with no one very interesting.
The new renovation took years and cost a fortune and we all held or breath as to what they were going to do to this elegant old lady in silks, pearls and aristocratic white gloves.
Those rooms have gone and remain nothing but a memory in folks but now its transformed into a red, black, dimly light sexy bar and restaurant like an unrecognizable relative having undergone a dramatic and life changing face lift.
The new hotel is still that ‘familiar woman’ but the face-lift had been so dramatic no one recognizes her so our affection is now offered to a virtual stranger who has not proved herself, all dressed up in blacks, red, chrome, glossy woods and angles. This new female is a high-class tart.
Gone is the main sweeping grand staircase, whose stairs were at a half height so easy to negotiate, plus you got a great view of everyone walking below. We never used the lift it was too boring.
The new staircase off to the side, wrapped around a huge chandelier and is quite forgettable. We always now use the two lifts.
To the left, under the old salon staircase, was a long elegant paneled tea room like a country house meets a Regency gentleman’s club with white table cloths, pale blue silks, bone china, silver teapots, pale watercolors, a piano, fresh flowers and a queue of people begging for tables on weekends.
No one ever left, gave up a table or cancelled as it was ‘first in last out’ and if you weren’t seated by 3.15 pm, you were never getting in.
We all dressed up to make polite conversation fuelled by earl grey tea, crust less cucumber sandwiches, anemic pale small cakes and the famous scones with Devonshire clotted cream, rich red fruit jam, and a little silver dish of butter. They were the highlight of the afternoon and stuck in our stomachs for days.
No one drank alcohol as ‘tea’ meant ‘tea’, not coffee and not vodka cocktail.
Now the new red, black glossy smart bar, on the way to the restaurant, feels like a funnel. Who stops and drinks in a funnel?
Beyond the funnel/tunnel is the Amaranto restaurant and an outside terrace patio.
Off to the right, towards the huge windows are a few sub divided spaces of comfortable elegant contemporary slightly 1930’s seating areas in reds, black, creams and browns which are very impressive, sophisticated, international, sexy but slightly foreboding.
This was for a new generation of visitors and it was exciting, bold comfortable and important looking.
I took some pictures and wandered back to the empty restaurant.
Four men, speaking Russian, were finishing off a very expensive breakfast but I thought they might be lost.
Upstairs the banqueting rooms stood silent and abandoned.
Where were those giggling naughty children who once rolled over the floor in starched party dresses? The flashy young women wandering in high heels, too much make up, tight gowns and a perfumed haze? The cocky pubescent young men just sprouting chin hairs, swaggering in pointed toed black laced up shoes? Fat old ladies squeezed into sequins with powdered white faces?
Slumped back into a red plush chair, I handed the waiter my card and said I wanted to see chef so he disappeared behind a screen, leaving me the only person in the cavernous empty room.
He sensed I was in no hurry as he walked back and kindly explained to my glazed over eyes it was chef’s day off but could I come back tomorrow?
It was too emotionally draining, as I had re lived the past and forgotten about the silent truffles, nestled comfortably in my bag.
As I left I hesitated in the lobby and looked at the large empty black modern sofa and mumbled;
“I met Elliot Gould in that exact spot and it was dynamic. I wonder how he’s doing these day’s?”
Another young doorman offered to take my bag from me.
“No thank you, I am walking today” I replied which was perfectly normal in 2016.
Back outside through the ever-swinging doors, pushing between the ghosts coming in and those going back out I gasped the cold fresh air and I came back to life.
“Taxi for you ma’am?” Mr. Charm in deep brown wool offered, but unusually, I noticed the roadway was empty so there weren’t any…
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