Your mother, and you, would like it

With a captive clientele, hotel restaurants are often lazy. The Forte e mpire is trying to improve its image, notably at St Georges in London, says Emi ly Green

If we are to believe the rather beautiful Amex commercial featuring Rocco Forte, his empire consists of luxurious hotels. Perhaps his Happy Eaters hit the cutting-room floor. Hotels, he tells us in the advertisement, require attention to endless details. Until the Nineties, one of the details that seemed to elude Mr Forte was a restaurant of note in any of his British hotels.

It was not, however, for lack of trying. The organisation had flunkies galore: fleets of ``food and beverage men'', executive chefs, consultant chefs, even chefs who cooked. Still, its reputation was so abysmal that when, early in 1990, its ``classics division'' produced a genuinely good place - the Bath Spa in Avon - most British critics still felt compelled to sneer.

But over the past three years, the 48-year-old hotelier has developed a policy that may, just may, lure Londoners back into the capital's hotels, a number of which are owned by Forte. It has begun to lease its grandest dining rooms to independent restaurateurs: first, Nico Ladenis was placed in the Grosvenor House Hotel, Park Lane; then Marco Pierre White in the Hyde Park Hotel, Knightsbridge; then Bob Payton in the Criterion Brasserie; then, most surprisingly, a groovy squad of Groucho Clubbers in the Atlantic. The diversification continues apace. Two weeks ago, The Heights opened in the Forte-owned St Georges Hotel off Portland Place.

Seen from the street, St Georges is a dull, modern building, an unseemly neighbour to All Souls, a lean Nash church. But once aloft - The Heights is on the 15th floor - one finds a long, window-lined room offering superb views east and west.

The first half of this modern eyrie is a bar, perfect for an old-fashioned lush partial to a good sunset. Make that a lush bold enough to ask staff to raise the chic Venetian blinds; and while our dipso is at it, perhaps he or she could ask the staff to turn off the jazz music piped out of a stereo speaker only yards from an unattended grand piano that some interior desecrator has painted light green.

Piano and blinds aside, the place as a whole works. Tables are generously spaced and the fittings manage to look modern, yet feel pleasingly plush. ``I'll bring my mother here,'' said my companion.

Once the cooking settles in, the appeal should stretch beyond the Mothering Sunday crowd. The chef is 29-year-old Adam Newell, recruited by Forte early this year when he was head chef of the Roux-owned restaurant, Le Poulbot. Mr Newell has four years' experience with cher Albert, a hard training. His skill now shows in items such as perfect puff pastry.

But, unusually for a French-trained chef, he lists two vegetarian main courses: something called a ``gateau of aubergine and tomato vinaigrette'' and baked artichoke with mushroom confit and roast shallots.

This is ambitious food, as were the dishes we chose. And the adventurous thinking has, to my mind, outpaced the execution. A dish listed as an ``onion and thyme tart with olive coulis'' was more a Provencal number: first-class pastry topped less with onions than daintily sculpted courgettes, slices of unripe tomato and whole leaves of basil. The ``olive coulis'' amounted to artistically placed dollops of tapenade, which did more for the look than the taste of the dish.

Cream of spinach soup needed more body. Dotting little goat's cheese dumplings in the bowl was a perfectly good idea, but the dumplings were too small and too heavy.

Calf's liver came perfectly cooked on well-seasoned mash with a red onion confit. ``Braised lamb'' was more like a faggot, whose caul had been insufficiently seared before slow-cooking, and was slippery and unpalatable. A blob of pesto on top of the faggot was, again, set decoration. Butterbeans to the side were hard enough to have passed as flavourless peanuts.

The pastry in a sable of pears was excellent. The fruit, however, was a bit bland and the confectioner's sugar so heavily deployed as to induce a sneeze. No points for the chocolate sauce, which tasted like molten white chocolate with a scant dash of cocoa powder.

If this sounds harsh, I should emphasise that there is nothing wrong with this food that toning down the artifice and turning up the flavours will not cure. Mr Newell not only has the skill, to judge by his training, he also has the stamina and standards to do just that.

The service, like the cooking, is still suffering teething pains. Order calf's liver and the waiter might produce cod. However, the staff, a handsome young bunch turned out in beige tunics, could not be nicer or more welcoming.

The set lunches are keenly priced at pounds 14 for two courses and pounds 18 for three. Wine by the glass is less of a saving: a large glass of white wine can cost pounds 4.75. It is an idea, too, to ask for tap water; mineral water costs pounds 4 a bottle.

Next trip, I plan to test-drive the Tanqueray martinis and the widget that works the blinds.

The Heights, St Georges Hotel, Langham Place, London W1 (071-636 1939). Open lunch and dinner Mon-Fri, dinner Sat-Sun. Dinner a la carte approx pounds 30-pounds 35. Major credit cards.

(Photograph omitted)