A luxury hotel takes a new look at food

It is time to salute the food at Los Angeles’ youngest big hotel, the 889-room InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown. Perhaps it is because it has a perennially-young French boss, Jean-Jacques Reibel, he who made food such an essential part of his previous hotel, InterContinental Hong Kong. The success of the dining here is undoubtedly also because of this luxury property’s exuberantly charming chef, Todd Sicolo, an upper-New York State boy who has cooked with many of the best culinarians in the USA. Here, there is a modern French brasserie, Boucherie, unfortunately on its night off when the gal was there.

I caught up with Todd Sicolo over the fantastic breakfast buffet at Dekkadance, on the hotel’s 69th floor. As well as all the usuals, plus breads from La Brea, there were pizzas, including a chocolate one shown here. And for the really hearty there were whole flank steaks, carved to order, a reminder that a few years ago I toured Australia on the same breakfast day in, day out, namely lamb cutlets (looking back my first thought is that tastes change, and thank goodness).

Dekkadance is a gathering place for hotel guests and also local residents – it is within minutes of both Los Angeles’ Chinatown and Koreatown, and, as the photo on the left shows, it is next door to significant big-name headquarters. And that is another reason that the food policy here is so well thought out. Rooms’ automatic minibars have Veuve Clicquot Champagne as well as LA Press local juices, cold-pressed with caffeine: my favourite was ’72° and sunny’, with apple, carrot, cayenne, ginger, lemon and lime, and apple cider vinegar. These drinks are also in the luxury hotel’s ground floor vestibule, shared with the building’s office block . There is a to-go area here, which probably makes more money per square foot than any fancy restaurant. Clever.