Four Seasons: Eatin' Good In The Neighborhood

Being the talk of the town has never been a problem for F&B outlets within the Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts portfolio. Getting locals to actually step foot in those renowned restaurants has been a bit more challenging.

Recently, the company began rethinking the way it designs its restaurants, eschewing the trappings of classic luxury and embracing a more modern aesthetic. I talked with Guy Rigby, Four Seasons’ vice president of F&B for the Americas, about the company's new policy of commissioning designers exclusively for the restaurants. Today, Rigby tells me, “casual elegance” is the goal for Four Seasons' F&B projects, although the company is careful to consider local market factors, realizing that classic formal dining is still the expected rule in certain cities around the globe, like Hong Kong and Paris.

"In the good old days, most hotels would be designed by one good designer and, by definition, would do the guestrooms and spa and the restaurants and the common areas, and so the whole hotels would take on a very similar look," Rigby says. Four Seasons would then come in and install a certain theme in the restaurant that would "fit inside that box.”

At the end of the day, even though each Four Seasons restaurant was ostensibly unique, they tended to have one thing in common: they were inherently targeted primarily at the hotels’ guests. While Four Seasons restaurants have long been recognized the world over for their excellent cuisine and superb service, they often feel unapproachable among the locals. "The experience was fantastic, but we were lacking a little bit of buzz,” Rigby says.

The overarching restaurant trend in many cities over the past decade has been to offer fine dining and an adventurous culinary experience in a more casual setting. Rigby admits it was a dramatic shift in hotel F&B design that was a long time evolving but which Four Seasons was slow to embrace. "We realize the most important thing is that when our guests go to the concierge and ask, ‘Where do the locals eat?’ that [the answer] be a Four Seasons restaurant," he says.

New Four Seasons restaurants, like the showpiece Culina Modern Italian (above) at Four Seasons Hotel Los Angeles at Beverly Hills, forego outdated, unwritten rules like keeping dining room and bar areas separate and hiding the kitchen and service stations. This may not sound revolutionary, but for a brand as steeped in traditional luxury as Four Seasons, it most certainly is. “We have to make sure the restaurants we build in our hotels are in tune with the great restaurants that are going up outside our hotels," Rigby says.

In rare instances, that even means partnering with a celebrity chef, like in the case of Michael Mina’s Bourbon Steak at Four Seasons Hotel Washington, DC. It also means making a concerted effort to moderate the sometimes eye-popping menu prices. "Our service has always been exceptional, but things like the quality of cutlery and stainless steel were getting out of hand,” Rigby says. “We don’t need to be charging US$85 for a hamburger; part of this creating a neighborhood restaurant is offering neighborhood pricing."

Here is a great slideshow of images from some of the newly concepted Four Seasons restaurants. Check out Aer at Four Seasons Hotel Mumbai, in particular. Very cool.