Best Western Abbey Hotel, North Parade, Bath (01225 461 603). Meal for two, including wine and service: £100
Like "butcher's choice" and "luxury flat", "Best Western" before the word "hotel" is a promise already broken. The flats advertised as luxury never are; the sausages allegedly chosen by the butcher are a defamation of the pig. And a Best Western Hotel leaves you musing on what seventh circle of hell merely "adequate" would offer. I write from experience of drab, over-heated rooms smelling of despair and yesterday's breakfast; of creaking plumbing and demoralised staff waiting to erase this period of their life from the CV; of breakfast buffets where rubberised eggs pucker and tense. Nothing good has ever happened to me in a Best Western-branded hotel. Until now.For hiding away in the Best Western Abbey Hotel in Bath is something very special. It is a kitchen run by a gifted chef called Chris Staines. The last time I ate his food it was at the Michelin-starred Foliage at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Knightsbridge. His dishes there – a glorious melon soup with a shard of crisped Parma ham on top, a plate of sweetbreads with a sweet onion compote and garlic caramel – were deep and intense and clever. They were ruined by the self-conscious poncery of "faine dining" which made the whole experience about as much of a laugh as having verrucas removed with a blow torch. It was all waiter faff and bother. Suddenly the idea of Staines in a Best Western, where he landed after a journey around various grand hotel gigs, sounded promising. His terrific food, without the hassle? Could it be?
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