X to Zed
Sometimes we discuss the possibility of spending a night in the W hotel. It's no more than 2 miles from our house but the allure of their perfectly comfortable beds beckons to us from memories of happy nights we slept at the Ws in Seattle and San Diego. We fondly recall how Zoë at the W in New Orleans saved us many times from the dreadful food at the conference centre opposite, a fact which recently caused us to wonder why we had resolutely decided to never give the restaurant at San Francisco's W a chance. The answer to the question was clear to us. Only tourists eat at W hotels, don't they? Why on earth should we play and pay at being tourists in our own town?
For the sake of SFist readers, playing at being tourists is exactly what we did last weekend when we convinced a group of our affluent friends to join us for dinner at XYZ, the restaurant and bar attached to our very own Bay Area W hotel. It was no surprise to note that we had all dressed up for the occasion without being prompted - it's just the stylish kind of place that implies that you have to at least try to make some kind of effort. At 8.45pm, The Living Room was already noisy and crowded so we slunk upstairs to enjoy apertifs in XYZ's lounge-style bar hidden behind the beaded curtain. At that time on a Saturday night the XYZ bar was not even half full. We received prompt and pleasant service before settling on a balcony banquette overlooking our dining spot.
Strong cocktails and large glasses of wine paired with the lively conversation that flowed as we mixed old friends with new put us all in a convivial mood. At that point we knew that whatever happened, we were going to have a good night. Everyone was in exactly the right mood, we were all the same wavelength and each of us was one hundred percent up for whatever the evening had in store.
After about twenty minutes of gossiping and with our drinks not quite finished, we meandered back downstairs to claim our table in the dining room. Our enthusiastic server bounded over to welcome us in a style that can only be described as jolly, putting the coolness of the entire W operation in jeopardy. We were not about to complain about his cheeriness, however, even though his description of the soup "finished with dash of cream" turned out to be inaccurate. To the contrary, our appetiser turned out to be more like a luke warm bowl of cream "finished with a dash of some vegetable" (sunchoke, cardoon and lemon oil, apparently). In fact, nary a vegetable could be distinguished in the myre although a hint of lemon did just about burst through and make itself known to the table before disappearing behind a creamy-white cloud.
Instead of licking the bowls clean we attacked a pinot noir instead and no one seemed to notice as the entrees came and went. We can just about remember the sweet little ball of granita that garnished a small plate of glistening hamachi sashimi. We recall trying a forkful of pasta from someone else's plate that was nothing more than ordinary. Another friend's duck just wasn't worth the effort of finding more words for.
Oh what the heck, we ordered a second bottle of wine. Then one of us (just us actually), had dessert wine and they brought us two plates of complimentary little sugary treats from the chef. Yes - we remember that - the free stuff, but only because it included an uninspired rendition of the Mexican Wedding Cookie. What can we say? We just learnt to make these cookies at Cooking School and we know how easy it is to make them taste decent? The gesture was a sweet touch though, we are ungracious to complain.
We are not sure how everyone else at our table felt, but it occurred to us we had spent an un-San Francisco kind of evening - it almost was like being tourists in our own town. Sometimes we need that feeling of a change from our humdrum lives and the W delivers well on its particular brand of escapism.
By the time we left XYZ's restaurant, a hefty $60 lighter in each of our pockets, the W's bar and Living Room were both too overcrowded to comfortably accommodate us, so we sauntered a block North to people-watch, way-too-high-for-San-Francisco-shoe-watch and bizarre-collection-of-fashion-faux-pas-watch over a refined night cap at the St Regis. We wonder how long it will take before the cool young kids down at the W discover there is another, even more 'trendy', place to hang out, only a stones-throw away?