Dining in a Winter wonderland

Wise words, I'm sure, but one of the pleasures of writing about restaurants is finding the odd truffle buried beneath the muck.

In most cases, these establishments are obscured by the drabness of their surroundings, but, just occasionally, they're hiding in plain sight - and a prime example of this is The Winter Garden at The Landmark London. Until last week, I didn't know it existed, yet, in terms of appearance alone, it must be one of the most dazzling restaurants in London.

Originally called The Great Central Hotel, The Landmark was built next to Marylebone Station in 1899, making it the last of the great Victorian railway hotels. It shut up shop 40 years later and eked out an existence as an office building before being acquired by a Japanese company in 1986. After a lavish refurb, it reopened as The Regent and was eventually bought by the Lancaster Landmark Hotel Company in 1995.

The hotel used to operate a separate fine dining restaurant run by John Burton Race - who earned two Michelin stars for his trouble - but it closed down four years ago, leaving the main guest dining room to take up the slack.

The Winter Garden is like nothing I've ever seen before. It's located at the bottom of a huge, eight-storey atrium, with palm trees stretching all the way up to the glass roof. This area used to be a stone courtyard, so hotel guests could pull up at the entrance in their horse-drawn carriages, and the sense it leaves you with is one of huge, unrestricted space. How many other restaurants in London can boast dining rooms of this size?

When I say The Winter Garden is ' undiscovered' I mean it's not on the radar of London's restaurant-going elite, but that doesn't mean it's empty. On the contrary, it was about three-quarters full on the day I visited and, thanks to the popularity of Sunday brunch and afternoon tea, it does about 8,000 covers a month.

The Landmark boasts of being the best-value luxury hotel in the capital and some of my fellow diners were undoubtedly hotel guests, but several of them were local business people, too, and there were also a few mothers and daughters putting their feet up after a heavy day's shopping.

I was flying solo on this occasion and thought I'd give the £30 set lunch a try. I started off with a very respectable quail and aubergine salad and followed up with a slightly less successful chicken Caesar. The chef, Gary White, deserves top marks for leaving the skin on the chicken breast - it turned out to be the best part of the meal - but he went slightly overboard on the creamy dressing. Next time I'll know to order the dressing on the side.

My only complaint concerns the uniforms of the waiters and waitresses. The men were dressed in cheap black tie - they looked like American adolescents on their way to the high school prom - and the women were kitted out in air-hostess uniforms circa 1980. (If The Landmark had been a pub, they would have been camouflaged against the swirly carpets.) To complete the effect, they each bore little plastic name tags, as if they were manning the toiletries counter at Boots. Hardly the sort of effect you want to produce in a five-star hotel.

Still, having said that, I have no hesitation in recommending The Winter Garden. The management may not have got every detail right, but the overall impression is one of glorious, prewar splendour. Truly, an undiscovered gem.

The Winter Garden
Marylebone Road, London, NW1 6JQ