When fourth-generation owner Innegrit Volkahrdt took over the management of the Hotel Bayerischer Hof from her father Falk Volkhardt in 1992, one of her first tasks was the renovation of the Garden restaurant. True to the hotel’s belief that living in luxury is to live without annoying time constraints, the restaurant’s gourmet kitchen offered its largesse to guests seven days a week throughout lunchtimes and evenings.
But a hotelier’s work is never done. As a member of the Leading Hotels of the World, the hotel’s restaurants naturally attracted a cosmopolitan and demanding clientele – in substantial numbers. In 2009 the restaurant was renovated again, expanding the hotel’s offering with fresh, exciting features and adding the new gourmet restaurant Atelier.
For a hotel with such a strong heritage, change can be a huge operation. “Thorough research was required to make a break from the past; to find a style which would underscore the new but not betray the timeless spirit of the grand hotel,” says Elena del Carlo, director of public relations for the Hotel Bayerischer Hof. “The scale had to be truly international. Our prize-winning luxury is continually compared to the greatest and the best all over the world, and we must never cease to develop our own tone in providing the best service for our guests.”
That five star service has won the hotel several awards over the years. It offers 350 rooms including 60 suites; the rooms are decorated in six distinct styles, so that visitors can always expect something different, while the suites are so individual and personalised as to defy thorough description. A ballroom and 40 additional function rooms provide excellent surroundings for events with up to 2,500 people, while the Blue Spa – designed by star architect Andrée Putman – offers breathtaking views over the city of Munich and the highest levels of wellbeing service.
Renovating one of the hotel’s key venues, then, is clearly serious business.
“We asked, how has the idea of gastronomic pleasure changed in the last few decades?” says Ms del Carlo. “What has become more important? What are the demands of well-informed customers in terms of food? Service? Aesthetic atmosphere? What mood, what ambience do they seek?” Fortunately, the gastronomic side of the equation was already there with the excellent skills of Steffen Mezger, who selects the very best regional products and serves a cuisine of versatile classicism and contemporary refinement marked by Mediterranean lightness and south German influences.
The issue was not just to create a beautiful, contemporary design, says Ms del Carlo, but rather the perfect experience in the perfect place. The Belgian interior designer, art collector and antiques dealer Axel Vervoordt, primarily known for his design of private homes, luxury apartments and palaces, was brought in. With the Atelier and Garden restaurants at the Hotel Bayerischer Hof he completed his first public restaurant project.
The Garden, the main restaurant, fills the area within a tall conservatory. The indoor space offers 70 seats, and an outer area under a pergola of wisteria and clematis has 40 seats. There is a private lounge – the 20 seat Garden Salon – which shares the restaurant’s open fireplace. The decoration is authentically rustic: a Venetian hand-crafted limestone floor gives way to oak floorboards with an antique finish in side rooms; walls appear almost unplastered, while newly assembled furniture contrasts with carefully selected antiques. The unusual and reserved colour palettes all create an atelier or workshop atmosphere, feeding into the overall renovation concept for the restaurant.
The Atelier is a smaller, more intimate restaurant seating 25, with an additional ‘Privé’ with six to eight seats, separated by a mobile wall by artist Dirk Vander Eecken. A small terrace sheltered by Japanese maple, boxwood and well-grown Amur maple trees, seats a further four. Here, chef Steffen Mezger and his team offer gourmet meals with a selection of two menus, five evenings a week, from Tuesday to Saturday.
At the same time as the remodelling of the Atelier and Garden restaurants, the hotel’s guestrooms and junior suites were restyled. Investment costs for the restaurants ran to a total of €4m, and the same amount was invested in the accommodation. A further highlight by Axel Vervoordt will be presented in summer 2010: a private luxury screening room for business and private events.
