No room at the Ritz
Many are left feeling empty as the hotel's grand Dining Room clears its tables for good
The last days of the Dining Room are winding down at Boston's Ritz-Carlton Hotel. One weeknight recently, the fabled ornate room looked elegant -- its chandeliers glittering, the pale blue draperies folded just so on windows overlooking the Public Garden, silver chargers at each place setting. Two tall Christmas trees at the entrance twinkled with white lights.
The room, more than half full, buzzed with conversation as diners chatted with the wait staff, who constantly refilled water glasses and carefully described dishes and wines. But most of the talk turned melancholy. ''It's sad," a patron said, and the waiter nodded solemnly as he said that many of the staff members had worked there more than 20 years. The Dining Room, which first opened in 1927, will serve its last meals on Friday -- New Year's Eve -- and reopen as a private function space in January.
For Ora and John Costello of Weston, the Thursday night dinner was bittersweet. They'd been given the dinner by their five children to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary, and as they were leaving the hotel after dinner, Ora Costello admitted feeling nostalgic. The dinner had been lovely and the staff wonderfully attentive, she said, but the closing marked the end of an era. ''We just wanted to come back one more time," she said.
Another table of five women -- talking, laughing, and even weeping a little as they nibbled on petits fours and blew soap bubbles -- revealed later they were marking the beginning of a marriage. Two of the women, wearing wrist corsages and smiles, had just been married, a waiter revealed. In the hallway, as they were leaving, the two said they preferred not to be identified, but one said: ''It seemed appropriate to celebrate here -- our wedding and the grande dame of Boston." A guest, Pat Fox of Waltham, said her memories of the Dining Room had always been of superb service. ''They made it special for us tonight," she said, and the other four women nodded in agreement.
Superb service, a sense of timeless elegance, and a storied past have drawn generations of Bostonians to the Dining Room. Many of the groups this particular evening were multigenerational -- a beautiful white-haired woman with a younger couple and two little girls in party dresses, a family with teenagers, the boy in a jacket and tie, the girl in spiky heels. Ritz-Carlton regional spokeswoman Caron LeBrun said the Dining Room's reservations list is now packed with patrons wishing to savor the experience one more time.
But business before the closing was announced had been so slow that the hotel decided closing it was the only option, she said. The hotel has been receiving inquiries for private events, many of those for Fridays and Saturdays, and that was not possible when the Dining Room was open as a restaurant on those nights. Already, LeBrun said, three weddings, a bar mitzvah, and a birthday party have been booked for the room. Although a recent renovation added doors to allow private dining rooms on either side of the main area, neither could accommodate large parties. Now, she said, 120 people can be seated in the room for private events.
This is not the first time the hotel has closed its fine dining restaurant. When the Ritz-Carlton Boston was being renovated in 2000, the hotel announced the Dining Room would not reopen to the public. The outcry was so vociferous that the management relented. The room reopened in 2002 with Tony Esnault, who had worked for Alain Ducasse in Monte Carlo and at the Four Seasons in San Francisco, as its chef. Refurbished and with an adventurously contemporary French menu, the Dining Room looked like a renaissance in the making.
But the ''very grand and elegant setting" didn't seem to attract diners, said Gerald Small, formerly the Dining Room maitre d' and now the maitre d' of the Ritz Cafe downstairs. ''We're finding people don't wish to dress anymore," Small said. ''People don't want to put on a tie." The more casual cafe is ''absolutely thriving," he said, as he fondly remembered grand events of the past.
In the room's heyday, as many as 20 anniversaries would be celebrated on a weekend night, and one proposal a weekend was guaranteed, Small said. The most unusual he remembered was when all the waiters and captains lined up and carried in 12 silver domes over trays. ''We lifted them all simultaneously, and the last one had that one beautiful ring," Small said.
Mark Allen, the last chef of the Dining Room before it closed in 2000, posited several reasons that the grand room didn't seem to attract enough diners. Allen, who spoke from his busy restaurant Le Soir in Newton, said he thought the room itself and its second-floor location might have something to do with it. Maybe if the restaurant was on the street level and ''had its own identity," he said, more in keeping with the more casual style of dining today, the room might work. ''It's all in the approach that Ritz has taken with that dining room," Allen said, adding that other hotels have been successful promoting ''hot young chefs."
However, he wonders if the Ritz will lose some prestige not having a fine dining component to the hotel. Although Katrina Prinz, communications director of the Mobil Travel Guide, said a fine-dining restaurant isn't a necessity to gain a five-star rating from Mobil, ''most do have one." The Dining Room recently won a four-star rating from Mobil under chef Esnault; the hotel also has a four-star rating. Although there are a few five-star hotel restaurants in the country -- the San Francisco Ritz-Carlton's being one of them -- the Dining Room's four-star rating matches that of Aujourd'hui in the Four Seasons Boston. That hotel has a five-star rating, and Michael Law, director of marketing, said fine dining is an important element. ''As with any Four Seasons," said Law, ''we always want to be the best in the city. Many, many years ago, the old adage was you could never get a good meal in a hotel," he said, adding that the hotel was determined to change that because of the increased importance of the food and beverage experience to a hotel.
Aujourd'hui also was recently renovated as part of a whole new look for the restaurant, now open only for dinner under chef Jerome Legras, whose cuisine is cutting-edge contemporary French. There was never any thought of changing the restaurant to a more casual concept or of closing it, Law said. It's ''kind of what our clientele would expect," he said. ''Boston as a city is becoming much more sophisticated in its dining." Besides, many of the guests are from New York and abroad, and they expect dining as good as in San Francisco, New York, London, and Milan.
The economics of event spaces can be attractive, said a former restaurateur who is finding success by hosting private parties. Jim Apteker and his family operated Veronique restaurant in Brookline before changing it over to a function space; they also own Ballroom Veronique. This year Apteker bought the Bay Tower Room on top of the State Street Bank, which is now operated as the State Room. ''The State Room and Veronique are both home runs for us," said Apteker, adding that restaurants are always a gamble but event spaces, where everything is arranged beforehand, are sure things, and the profit margin is greater. At the State Room, he said, corporate business fills the weekdays and weeknights, and weekends are booked for private events such as weddings and bar mitzvahs.
Meanwhile, at the Ritz Dining Room, the last diners straggled out, shaking hands with the staff, wistfully glancing around the room. LeBrun, the spokeswoman, said the 21 staff members were assured other jobs as banquet staff in the cafe, bar, or Ritz-Carlton Boston Common. But standing in the doorway to the Dining Room as the evening ended, the young chef, Esnault, who said he had been completely taken by surprise by the closing, said he wasn't sure of his plans. ''My wife and I just bought a house in Framingham," he said, adding that the couple has a 4-month-old baby.
Less than a month before, his cooking had garnered a Mobil four-star rating. Now everything was about to change. ''Everyone wrote letters when the Dining Room closed" in 2000, one of the waiters remarked, but ''they didn't come back to eat." 