Peterpack

I am purposely posting this in the luxury hotel section and not the dining section because it's specifically about service at luxury hotels

What level of 'guest' would you need to be for luxury hotels to take requests from you for meals not on the room service menu ?

I'm talking reasonable requests. Not something like requesting extravagant specialised dim sum (yum cha) items at a hotel which does not have a dim sum (yum cha) restaurant.

Any special request, even fairly simple would be quite time consuming for a kitchen purely because they haven't prepped for that particular meal. They are obviously not going to do this for every guest, so what level of guest would most luxury hotels consider going the extra mile for ?

who here has requested such a thing and how did the hotel respond ?

Often1

By definition, it's not a luxury hotel if it can't acommodate a reasonable room service request.

This is what "luxury" is.

FlyerEC

+1 ^

If the hotel has the key ingredients , they will accommodate at short notice - when you order at the meal itself .
If not , may need some time to ship or fly in especially in more remote areas e.g. Amanwana

obscure2k

My son became ill with food poisoning in Paris.He was staying at Le Bristol. They prepared chicken consommé for him, which was not on the menu. Of course, it was served with great style.

pricesquire

How does a French hotel like the Bristol screw up chicken consommé!?

RichardInSF

I don't think the hotel was being blamed for the food poisoning, but for their flexibility in making a soup not on their room service menu for a guest who needed it.

OliverB

A bit OT but I recently stayed on the Queen Elizabeth in Long Beach and decided to order room service one morning. They had a club sandwich (classic room service item) listed on the "all-day" menu, but when I called room service I was told that "all-day" does not include mornings. Apparently mornings are not part of the day, because the dimwit on the phone informed that it was not yet "daytime" but morning. We then proceeded to have a conversation straight out of Five Easy Pieces. I inquired as to whether bacon and toast were on the morning menu and then asked them to put those ingredients together and bring me a side of chicken. I even tried for a BLT which proved too difficult a request at 10:30 AM. Needless to say, we ended up eating out and it was probably for the better!

obscure2k

Thanks. You are exactly right. ^ The Bristol was wonderful when my son was so sick and the consommé was perfect.

Peterpack

Thanks guys, well i'm going to Singapore in October and staying at the Mandarin Oriental. I'll ask them to whip me up a Lobster Mac n Cheese (one of my fav meals)

OliverB

Mac and Cheese with Dungeness crab at Nick's Cove in Point Reyes is the best I've had in my life. Their restaurant is otherwise overambitious, overpriced, and overall disappointing, but the Dungeness mac and cheese (and bbq oysters) is exceptional! And yes, you can order it room service which at Nick's Cove, is the best way to enjoy it!

FlyerEC

When there ' re so many interesting regional & local dishes in Singapore , you want Lobster Mac n Cheese ??
How about pepper crab ; chilli crab .. perhaps lobster noodles , instead ??

Or if something soupy then chicken macaroni soup from the hawker or food centre / court .
FYI , Morton ' s is at MO too

Peterpack

Yes of course i will be sampling plenty of the wonderful local Singaporean cuisine as well

hannisen

When we stayed at the FS Lisbon this summer they insisted on preparing food for our 9 year old daughter that wasn't on the menu for both lunch and dinner. Also, for room service breakfast we had no issues with any of our special requests.

As people before me have mentioned, it's probably not uncommon at these types of hotels. I sat next to a lady once at breakfast at FS Boston who had a huge order, all of which was pretty specific and special and not on the menu.

Pierre&Cédric

Pierre has been ordering special cocktails which are not on the menu list at many hotel bars in Paris for years.
Regarding food it happened at Amanbagh as I was hungry for Asian food (and they prepared excellent fried rice) and quite often at the Park Hyatt Vendôme, they are always very accommodating.

Jasper2009

+1

A luxury hotel should be able to both offer a modified version of dishes (add/drop a certain ingredient, offer a main course salad as an appetizer etc.) as well as create simple dishes that aren't on the menu.