Originally Posted by deer

Since there are more and more discussions about food quality at Amanresorts, Four Seasons and other luxury resorts in Flyertalks Luxury Forum, I think it could be interesting to rate and rank them within the various chains. So in this thread, I would like to give you the possibilty to rank the food at our Luxury Hotel Favorites according to the following, very strict deer-criteria:

10 deerpoints: 3 Michelin star creativity & quality (according to your own judgement)
9 deerpoints: 2 Michelin star creativity & quality
8 deerpoints: 1 Michelin star creativity & quality
7 deerpoints: highly creative food with spices you never tasted before
6 deerpoints: creative food with some real unique dishes
5 deerpoints: very good luxury-hotel food with real local spices
4 deerpoints: good luxury-hotel food with some local accents
3 deerpoints: standard luxury-resort food nicely presented
2 deerpoints: boring americanized standard 5-star-hotel food with loveless presentation
1 deerpoints: untasty food with quality problems
0 deerpoints: real lousy food

Please be so nice and stick absolutely to that criteria - because when going to
a top luxury hotel, you could expect to have the possibility to experience some really special and creative food, not just plain good quality. It means for
example, if you had a perfectly made steak with fries or a very good fish, perfectly made like at your favorite non-gourmet home town restaurant, then it's NOT 6 or 7 deerpoints, but - depending on the creativity of the rest of the menu! - only 3 to 4 deerpoints. From 6 deerpoints on, food must be really excellent, creative and unique - and local dishes must be cooked with real local spices, only moderated if you specifically ask for mild.

Always keep in mind:

PLAIN GOOD FOOD MEANS 3 DEERPOINTS (not more!) - since at real luxury
hotels, that's the minimum one should expect! In fact, I expect creativity, real local spices, real positive surprises. And no standardization/americanization/mildization of local spices
Of course a hotel can get 10 deerpoints, if it has two or more restaurants and
one serves good quality standard food (steaks, pasta, fish etc.), and one or two other ones really high creative, 3 Michelin star quality food, as does my winner FS Hongkong. Or, one star below, the 9 deerpoints for Aman at Summer Palace with it's fantastic Japanese-French Naoki restaurant, it's great Chinese restaurant and it's standard-quality The Grill. But on the other hand, a resort like Amanpulo with real low quality Spanish cuisine at Beach Club, very
mediocre, americanized food at The Clubhouse only gets 1 deerpoint despite the nice laggon club with it's very tasty vietnamese cuisine, which would get 4 deerpoints, if the other restaurants were at least luxury standard...

You are gladly invited to put in one sentence after each rating to specify (or differentiate between different restaurants of that specific hotel), but if you do
not have the time it's also perfectly fine if you only rate it.

One last point: Please only rank real luxury hotels and no 4 or 5 star standard hotels like Hilton or Sheraton.


AMANRESORTS
9 deerpoints for Aman at Summer Palace (fantastic Japanese-French restaurant Naoki, very good Chinese Restaurant)
8 deerpoints for Amanfayun (very, very special local style restaurants and the most special teahouse worldwide, all on premise)
7 deerpoints for Amantaka (please order the very fine and very special laotian
meals!)
6 deerpoints for Amanbagh
5 deerpoints for Amanjiwo
5 deerpoints for Amankora Paro
5 deerpoints for Aman New Delhi
4 deerpoints for Amandari
3 deerpoints for Amanwana
3 deerpoints for Amanyara
3 deerpoints for Amanpuri (very good Thai Restaurant, under par Breakfast,
the Japanese-French Naoki restaurant has neither a Japanese Chef like the ones at Summer Palace and Aman New Delhi, nor could the cooking and the
ingriedients reach the high quality of the Summer Palace Naoki)
2,5 deerpoints for Amankila
2,5 deerpoints for Amanusa
1 deerpoint for Amanpulo (low quality Spanish cuisine at Beach Club, mediocre & americanized food at The Clubhouse, but nice Lagoon club with very tasty
vietnamese cuisine. Generally no local fresh fish - and if it's at last semi-fresh-
fish flown in from Manila,

MANDARIN ORIENTAL
9 deerpoints for MO Tokyo (three very different, fantastic Michelin starred outlets + much more...)
6 deerpoints for MO München (they have a Michelin Star restaurant, which
could be slightly more creative)
6 deerpoints for MO New York
5 deerpoints for The Oriental, Bangkok (they have a lot of good restaurants, but each one lacks a little bit in real creativity and uniqueness. Something
inhibits them from having something real special.)
5 deerpoints for MO Chiang Mai
4 deerpoints for MO Kuala LumpuR


6 deerpoints Trisara, Phuket


(All my ranking & rating according to experiences in the last 6 years - so some
things could have changed. Please correct me where I'm wrong!)